Another Chance Carl Grimes Love Story
by katjanski2478
Summary: Both of her parents have been dead for a month and a half, and when stuck in a world of flesh-eating monsters by herself, 14 year old Emma Peterson believes that life isn't really worth living anymore. But, will all of that change when she meets Carl Grimes, and befriends a brand new family?
1. People

zombie_apocalypse_ready/set?id=112579556

My name is Emma Peterson.

I'm fourteen years old, and, well, living in the zombie apocalypse.

I guess that I might as well start off with a little background information, considering the circumstances.

Right now, I'm all alone. However, before about a month and a half ago, I had a mother. About six months ago, I had a father. I may or may not still have a sister, because she was gone before all of this started. Now I have absolutely no idea if she's still alive or not. I'd rather not think about it though, considering she could be the very last family that I have left. Which _kills me._

My mother was my best friend. She was the best person I've ever known, and the only person I looked up to besides my older sister, Delilah. I love her. I _loved _her. She was killed by somebody. Shot in the chest and bled to death, even though I have no idea who did it to her. I saw his face, but the chances I'll ever see it again are slim.

My father died protecting my mother from being bit. He's the one that taught me how to shoot. How to use a knife. Before this mess, how to stand up for myself. How to live, how to be happy. Now that he's gone, his lessons don't seem to help me anymore. I'm not happy, and I sure as hell am not living. Just surviving.

I've been moving a round a lot lately. Never staying in one place for too long. I never find any place that's good enough or will hold up. I always seem to find supermarkets or places that I can hang for about a week, until the area becomes overflown with Walkers, and I'm forced to leave. On foot, might I add.

I've managed to keep the one thing that I like about myself the most, though: my red hair. At all of the stores I've found, there always seems to be something there that I can use to help it stay. And it does. My original hair color is a dark brown, but the red just fits me so much better. Bright, bubbly, kick-ass. There isn't much that's really bright or bubbly anymore, so it keeps me optimistic.

Right now, it's the only thing that I have besides myself, so I like to keep it, regardless if it puts me a little behind my usual daily routine of: stab Walker, keep walking.

My sister always used to say something, and even got it tattooed on the back of her shoulder. _Every minute is another chance. _Even before all of this happened, she was totally in love with the saying. She would bring it up all the time, whenever it proved to be useful in whatever kind of situation we were in. And now, it seems to be the saying I live by. Every minute _is_ a second chance, considering that every minute that passes could have been a minute you were bit, killed, etc.

Now, we're back to the present. I've been living in a supermarket for the past couple of days. I've got plenty of food, a toilet and some water. Plus a blow up matress in the back of the store. _This is the life._

I have to keep moving, though.

It's been about a few hours, probably, and I'm just walking down an open road. Every once in a while, a see Walkers and stab them, careful not to shoot and draw more attention. That's when I see a group of crashed over cars on the side of the road. And that's when I see people. Not moaning, growling, flesh-seeking zombies. Living, breathing _p__eople._

I'm not really sure what I'm doing, when I start my way towards them, gun in my hands, ready to do whatever it is I have to.

There's two people, it looks like. One an older man, the other a younger boy. I keep walking, making myself very apparent to them as I make my way over, holding my gun in front of me. The two of them stand and look at me, and I'm not sure what they're thinking until the older man puts a hand out to stop me from walking.

I'm about twenty feet away from them, gun still in the air. "You bit?" he asks.

"Does it look like I am?" I say back, my surprise from seeing people obvious in my tone.

He stands there for a minute, looking me over. "How old are you?" the younger boy asks, taking the Sheriff's hat he's wearing off his head. "Carl.." I hear the older man mumble.

"Fourteen," I say, keeping my enthusiasm under control this time. "Don't move," the older one says, and walks around to the other side of the car. Talking to somebody in it, I guess.

I stand there awkwardly, the Sheriff hat boy staring at me. I didn't even notice I had put my gun down, my arms now crossed in front of me. The older man walks toward me, and I grip my gun. He chuckles.

'I'm Rick," he says, "and that over there is my son Carl." He points behind him. He holds out a hand.

"Emma," I say, reluctantly shaking his hand.

"You all by yourself?" he asks, obviously noticing that I'm all alone in the middle of nowhere.

"Yeah, I am," I say, trying to keep myself from being a smart-ass and saying, 'No, my parents actually just turned invisible yesterday. Weird, right?'

"You guys got a group?" I ask. He looks at me. "How many walkers have you killed?" ignoring my question.

"Too many to count."

"How many people have you killed?"

"Four," I say, not even thinking about it. He looks at me, surprise written all over his face. I guess four is a lot for a girl my age, but I don't think so. Not in this world.

"How long have you been by yourself?"

"About a month and half."

He takes a long look at me, and signals for his son to get in the car. "If you want to come along with us, you're welcome to." I'm surprised. He didn't really seem like the kind that would let in a total stranger.

"We have a big group back at home, so if you're allowed to s_tay_ is up to them. But you seem like you can carry your own weight just fine, so I wouldn't worry about it," he says, walking us back to the car. I wonder what he meant by that. He motions for me to climb in, him getting in the other side.

There was a woman in the driver's seat that I hadn't seen before. "Emma, this is Michonne and Carl. You guys, this is Emma. We're gonna take her back to the group. See if everyone wouldn't mind her being here. She's been by herself for more than a month, so I don't think she would be a burden on us."

There's a man outside the car, yards away, screaming something to us. We pull out, ignorning the screaming man and driving away.


	2. The Neighborhood

We drive for a while. I feel a hand touch my arm and I jump. It's Carl. He chuckles at me and smiles, holding a hand out for me to shake. I smile back, shaking his hand.

"What kind of a hair color is that?" he asks, and I smile.

"I dye it. Find some stuff every once in a while that I can use to keep it's color. It's actually brown."

"Ah," he says, smiling, and I turn back to face my window.

Eventually we reach a line of brick buildings and all get out of the car. I'm not really sure what's going on, where we're going or what, but once we get inside one of them, Rick doesn't seem too happy. Him and Michonne go back and forth, arguing a little. I stand close to the back, trying not to pay attention or get involved in case I'm not going to stay with their group. Carl is listening intently.

We keep walking when we get stopped by a giant ashen pile of zombies. We stare. _God, what kind of place is this? _Maybe I should have declined his offer to join their little group.

I feel a tug on my arm, and it's Carl. I didn't realize we started walking again. I look at him, back at the pile of walkers, and follow close behind him.

We keep walking, following arrows that are on the sidewalks, that seem to confuse everybody. We all pull out our guns, Michonne her katana, and take in the sight in front of us. "What is it?" Michonne whispers.

"I don't know," Rick says back.

There's words spray painted everywhere and giant speared sticks all alone the street we stand in front of. Booby-traps? Who are they trying to protect themselves from? We walk in silence, slowly. "Let's just get in and get the hell out of here." I hear Rick say.

We all limbo under and over things, making our way around whatever the heck this place is. Rick is saying some stuff, but I'm just overwhelmed by what's around us for some reason. I spin myself around slowly, seeing a walker behind us in the process. I tug on Carl's sleeve, motioning my head in it's direction. He does the same to his dad.

Michonne goes to kill it, but Rick tells her to wait. We watch it get caught on a line, and then a shot gets loudly fired through the air, startling me. There's somebody at the top of a building, his gun pointed at us, screaming to drop what we've got and go. We all put our hands up in the air, and my heart is pounding. This can't be good.

He's screaming at us, most of it inaudible to me. My head is pounding with my heartbeat, and I hear Rick say to run for the car. "Dad," Carl whispers back, obvious that he's not going to leave him.

"We need that rifle," Michonne whispers. The man on the roof is counting down from ten. _Shit. _

"EIGHT!"

"I think I can get up there," she says.

"SEVEN!"

"SIX!"

"Carl, Emma, go," says Rick, shooting at the man on the building, him shooting back at us. Carl and I take off running down the road, hiding behind cars in the process. The man is shooting like crazy. Me and Carl are hiding behind a truck, and I don't dare to move. The gunshots stop. Carl takes off, leaving me behind. "Carl!" I whisper/shout. He looks at me, his head pointing to follow him. I barely do, just moving from car to car slyly. I look back but don't see him. _Shit, shit, shit._

I see Michonne shrug down to us that the person isn't up there anymore, when I hear more gunshots, closer this time. I see Rick moving closer and closer to him, and just as he's about to stand up to shoot him, a bullet goes through the mans chest. Carl shot him.

We all gather around the body. Rick just stares at his son. I'm staring as well. Rick's about to say something when I interrupt. "You okay?" I ask, my voice coarse. He looks at me, down and back again. "Yeah," he chokes out.

"I told you two to run for the car," says Rick, breathing hard. He looks at his son. "I didn't want you to have to do that-"

"But I had to!" he says back. I look at Rick, but he just bends down to the body, hitting the mans chest. He's wearing some sort of bullet proof vest. "Do we care?" says Michonne. Rick takes off the guy's mask and stares at him. "Yeah..."

Michonne and Rick went to go check out an entrance to this guys house. Rick must know him.

I'm standing next to Carl, whose gun is pointed firmly in the direction of this guys head, who's laying unconscious. I just look at him. His brown hair is slightly grimy, but not enough to take away the shine. His eyes are a piercing blue. The last time I saw eyes like his were -

"Let's just get him inside and go."

Michonne and Rick take the man by both arms and carry him up the stairs of what must be his house. Carl is in front of me as we walk the stairs. "You two, watch the wire." Rick calls back. And that, we do.

We drop off the guy in a room, filled with guns and ammunition. I stare around, taking it all in. Michonne and Carl start taking as much ammo and guns as they can handle while I just stand there and look at the words written on the walls. "CLEAR" is everywhere in different colored paint. I look at Rick, and he sees it too.

I start looking around the room, grabbing a few guns that seem to fit me, and putting them in the belt loops that have gun holsters. My pants can hold about four guns, so I carry the last one that I had before I can here, filling them all up with ammo. "No." Rick says, and we all look at him.

"We have to wait for him to wake up. Make sure he's okay."

"He tried to kill us," says Michonne. She has a point, but it's obvious to me that Rick must have known this man or something. The two of them argue some more, something they both seem very good at doing. I exchange a look with Carl. Rick starts messing with osmething that looks like a walki-talki, and I follow as Carl moves into the next room.

There's a giant map drawn on the wall with chalk. We move closer to it, and I see Rick's name on it. "What is this?" I ask. Rick comes up behind us. "The neighborhood," Carl says.

"You used to live in?" I ask. He nods.

"It's gone," he says, directing his sentence towards Rick. I see what says "Rick's house Smoked out" written on the wall.

"Is that why you wanted to come? To see the house?" says Rick. "Carl?"

"I just... wanted to come," he says back. I look at him. He just stares at the wall, Rick moving into the other room. He looks sad. Not sad in a "I'm gonna ball my eyes out" kind of way. Sad in the fact that the world you once knew_ really_ is just... _gone_.

He walks slowly away from the wall, and I follow close behind, placing my hand on his back for a moment to comfort him.

"I'm going on a run."

"Where?" says Rick. He tells him about a place that has baby supplies, and possibly a crib, and I pick up on the fact that there must be a baby wherever it is that I'm following them to.

"Carl-"

"Dad, it's just around the corner. And there's all those Walker traps."

Michonne chimes in with that the box will be heavy, and he's gonna need help carrying it. "You are getting a crib, right?"

"That's what I said."

"Then, I'll go with him," I say, interrupting whatever Michonne was going to. Rick looks at him and I.

"If you two get into trouble, you holler," he says.

"Okay."

"You watch after him, now, you hear?" Rick adds to me when Carl can't hear, and I just nod.

We walk out of the building, walking fast with him in front of me.

"So," I say, trying to catch up with him, "This is around the place you grew up?"

"Yeah, it is," he says, suddenly acting cold.

It's silent until a walker appears, growling at us. "Got a knife?" he asks me. I nod my head, spinning it out of my boot and around my finger. "You should go take care of that, then."

"You're try'na get rid of me." I say. He just looks at me.

"I'm not gonna try and stop you if you want to go see your old house or somethin'. God knows if I had the chance to see mine, I'd take it in a heartbeat. Regardless if I was lying to my dad in order to do it." He looks at me and smiles, nods his head in the direction we must be going, and keeps walking in front of me. We round a corner.

"So what's this talk of baby stuff?" I'm finally able to keep up with him now, as he's not trying to get rid of me anymore. He takes a long pause before answering. "My baby sister, Judith. She was just born not too long ago."

"Your dad's kid, then?" He doesn't answer, just shakes his head. I know I must've struck a nerve, so we continue to walk in silence.


	3. King County

We finally come up building, the name _King County_ written above the doors. He uses his sleeve to wipe dust off of the windows and takes a look inside, and I watch his back, holding my knife close to me.

He puts his hand out on the door knob and I grab a hold of his wrist, stopping him from opening the door. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" I say.

"Hey, you said it yourself. If you had the chance to go back then you would. I need to go in here. My baby sister is growing up in a world full of flesh-eating monsters. I want her to have something that will make her at least_ feel_ like she's safe. You can't stop me."

I look at him and slowly drop his wrist. "Fine. But if you're going to do this, I'm not going to let you get killed." I say, suddenly feeling as if I've known this kid my entire life. He smiles and nods for me to open the door. "Hold on." I say, running back down the street as he follows close behind.

"What're you doing?" he whisper/yells.

I stop and maneuver my way around some speared sticks, grabbing one of the caged animals that lies in the middle to attract walkers. He looks at me, stunned. "Well, what're you waiting for? Go get one!" I tell him, and he follows my lead and grabs another.

We run back to the building. I slowly open the door, hearing a bell form the handle and grabbing a hold of it so it doesn't ring. We both slide the cages into the building discretely, the undead lying on the floor surround them. While they're distracted, we keep quiet, him in the lead as I close the front door behind us. The Walkers don't even notice.

He leads me down a covered walkway, looking back to see if I'm still there. I nod for him to keep moving, and he does, hiding behind the bar to our right. We both peek our heads out, and I keep my knife close to me as he starts trying to get whatever it is that he's getitng. I watch the walkers attacking the cages with their hands and face, seeking for the blood of anything that moves. They're so pathetic. I almost feel bad for them.

I watch him climb over the bar, and onto the other side. He climbs onto a chair, taking a picture from over top his head, when a hand appears and grabs his leg out of nowhere. He gasps, and I immediately stab it through the head.

A walker or two looks up but focuses their attention back on the subject at their hands. I slowly remove my knife, and me and Carl back out of the bar stools and behind the covered wall again.

That's when we see the rat. And the many Walkers that follow it. I feel Carl's hand wrap around my mouth and he stifles my yell, as if he knew I was going to. He grabs my hand and we run to the back of the bar, another door opening and Carl shooting a Walker in the head. I can feel my heart in my fingertips. _This is not good. _

I take my knife and stab another two Walkers in the head; one behind me and one coming out of a kitchen, it looks like. We race around the room, his grip tight, letting go whenever he needs to shoot something, but grabbing hold again after. I kick over a table and he shoots another two Walkers, and he drops the picture he grabbed before. I hear him yell "No!" before I open the door again and shut it tight behind us.

"We have to go back in!"

"Where did you drop it?" I say, breathing heavy, holding the door back with force.

"We have to go back and get it! We have to! _I have to!" _he yells. I just look at him. "It's the only thing I have left!" he yells again. He tries to push through me, but I push him back.

"Not like this." I say. He looks at me. "I said I'm not going to let you get killed, didn't I? Let me go in and do it."

"No way!"

"Carl. Come on."

"You could get hurt just as badly as I could! I'm not gonna have that guilt if something happens to you!" he says back.

"Yeah, but I'm a ninja and specially trained and you are not, so I will be fine." I say, trying to get him to not be so serious about this. He just looks at me. He seems to be pretty good at that.

He finally nods and takes a hold of the door for me, and I run around to the back of the building, still holding my knife. _I can't believe I'm about to risk my life for some boy I've just met._

I slip into the back door that leads to the kitchen, and there are no walkers in sight. I walk through to the bar. Thank goodness this place doesn't have creaky floors. I slide in behind them, and reach for the picture when one of them moves its foot up in the air, almost getting kicked in the face. I take the picture and run back out the kitchen door, and back around the building, looking at a picture of what seems to be a shaved Rick, a young Carl, and another lady, who I'm guessing is Carl's mom.

"Hey," I say, rounding the corner of the bar. "Here." I say, handing the picture to him. He looks at it and smiles, taking it all in for a moment.

"You look a lot like her," I say. He peaks his head up and looks at me, and surprisingly wraps his arms around my neck in a hug. I guess something must have happened to her, maybe? I'm not gonna ask, because every time I do, it seems like something really strikes a nerve with this kid. I reluctantly wrap my arms around him, embracing and taking in the hug.

It's been a long time since I've seen people. It's been a long time since I've spoken to people. It's been a ridiculously long time since I've seen a person my own age, or at least close to it. Anything could happen at any moment, so I savor the feeling of his hands on the back of my shoulders. "Thank you," he tells me, pulling away and looking at the picture again.

"I just... I just thought that Judith should know what her mom looked like," he says, his smile slightly remaining. So, his mom is dead, then. The poor kid. I walk back around the corner, grabbing something I had taken before. "It's all right. I was gonna go back in anyway."

He looks at me like I'm crazy as I pull out a rainbow colored ceramic cat from behind my back. "I just couldn't leave this behind. It's just too damn gorgeous." He chuckles with me as we walk back to where Rick was.


	4. Common Sadness

Carl and I went down to the baby store and found a really cute crib that should be perfect. We made some chit-chat during, talking about the members of his group, keeping it light. He told me about a girl named Beth and her sister Maggie, their father Hershel who's the kind of doctor and grandpa of the place, and a guy named Daryl, who seems pretty bad-ass by his description of him. He says that the two of us would like each other.

By the time we make it back, Rick is there with what looks like an angry Michonne. He has all of our stuff ready and is holding the bags. "I was just about to look for you," he says.

"Sorry," says Carl.

"It's all right. You're here now."

"Let's get going. Now." says Michonne, the both of us grabbing bags from Rick. "Thanks," he says, all of us walking out. We see the man from before. "So, he's okay?" I say.

"No. He's not," Rick says as we walk away.

"Hey!" yells Carl. "Hey, Morgan!" he looks up from his work.

"I had to shoot you. You know I had to, right? Sorry," Morgan nods slightly, walks up and says "Hey, son." We all stop again. "Don't you ever be sorry." he says. Carl nods, and we keep walking, finding our way back to the car, Carl and Rick putting the crib in the trunk while Michonne and I wait in the car.

"What'do you think of her? She all right?" I overhear Rick say to Carl.

"She might just be one of us, dad." he says back, and I find myself smiling at the boys words.

Michonne gets back out of the car as Carl gets in, going to put some things in the trunk and talking to Rick. "What're you so smiley about?" I hear Carl ask from beside me in the backseat.

I look over to him, and he's smiling as well. "I should be asking you the same thing, Mister!" I laugh, lightly punching him in the arm. "Oh, shut up," he laughs, punching me back. Michonne and Rick get back in the car, driving off, and we all sit in a comfortable, and for once in a _very_ long time, happy, silence.

Eventually I see a clearing that has a giant grey building, a giant fence around its boarders. "Whoa..." I say, not even realizing it.

"_This_ is the prison," says Carl, pointing in the obvious direction of the mass of brick and metal fence in front of us. I see some people on the opposite side of the fence, opening it up for us to come in. Once we're in and the gates closed, we start piling out of the car. I look around taking in the scene. "Emma!" I turn around at the voice of Carl. "Help me take care of this crib, will ya?" I nod and smile, making my way over and lifting the crib out of the car on the count of three. I hear a woman behind go, "Who's that?" Probably asking Rick.

"Maybe you should go get introduced to everybody, first, Emma," says Carl. "I'll catch up with you later," he says, getting Michonne to grab the other end of the crib for him when I hear Rick call for me.

I turn around and walk in his direction, where a blonde teenage girl and an older, maybe in her twenties, girl stand. "Hi!" The younger girl says. "I'm Beth." She leans over to shake my hand, very enthusiastically. "And you are?" she asks.

"Beth, Maggie, This is Emma. Emma, this is Beth and Maggie."

"I thought picking up strangers off of the side of the road wasn't allowed," says Maggie, not caring if I hear her or not.

"The girl's fourteen. She's been on her own for almost two months, killed four people, countless walkers. She can easily pull her weight. I'm not accepting her into the group, just wanted to get her off the streets like she was. I wouldn't want Carl out there like that. She needed to come with us," he says, doing a good job of defending me.

Maggie doesn't seem very convinced and walks away, arms crossed in front of her, Rick leaving as well. "Ignore her. She's jusst having a hard time right now, that's all," says Beth, giving me a sad smile. "Here, let me introduce you to the rest of the group," she says, linking arms with me. "I've been needing a girlfriend my age around here," she says chuckling. I laugh along with her, as we make our way to the prison walls.

We find our way up some stairs and into a cell block, along with what looks like a mess-hall, that's holds a few more people that I haven't seen before. When Beth and I come in they all look up. "Who's this Beth?" asks an old man, what I imagine is the Hershel Carl was talking about. "Daddy, this is Emma. This is my dad, Hershel." she says, un-linking with me and pushing me forward a little to go shake his hand. I do, and then she goes around the room pointing to a few people.

"That's Glenn, Maggie's boyfriend. Maggie is my sister, by the way. You obviously already know Michonne, Rick, and Carl," she says, enthusiastically counting off on her fingers. Another man walks into the room. "And this is Daryl! His brother Merle is around here somewhere, too, but I wouldn't bother trying to introduce you to him." She mumbles the last part so only I can hear her.

"And who is this little lady?" Daryl asks, his accent strong. Beth is about to introduce me to him when I walk up and offer my hand. "Emma." I say, looking up at him. He smirks, taking my hand to shake. "Quite the shake you got on you," he says, letting go and grabbing my shoulder. "Thanks." I say as he lets go.

"So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, Emma?" asks Hershel. I take a seat at the long table. "What do you wanna know?"

"Well, why were you all by yourself?" asks Beth, sitting down across from me.

I take a deep breath, ready to tell these people everything about me and my life, hoping that maybe opening up will help my chances with sticking with them. "Well, I was with my parents for a long time after the apocalypse started. We found a nice house that was near a few supermarkets, so we were all set for a long time. Then, one day, my parents were out on a run to get some more supplies and my mom came back holding my dying dad in her arms. He had gotten bit. That was about six months ago. After that it was just me and my mom, and she tried to remain optimistic about everything but that didn't work very well. About a month and a half ago, she got shot in the chest by somebody. They almost shot me, but I stabbed them and they backed off. I would have killed him if he had stuck around a little longer, or if I had a gun. He ran. My mom died. I've been on my own ever since."

I really spilled my guts. When I looked up, silence filling the air, Beth was on the verge of tears. She reached over to me and grabbed my hand trying to comfort me. "You an only child?" I hear Daryl ask.

"Uh, no. I have an older sister. Her name's Delilah, and she's twenty-three. I don't know where she is, though. She was gone off to college, so she was far away. I haven't seen her in years. I don't know if she's alive or not." Beth squeezes my hand, wiping her face with her free sleeve.

"Well. You seem like you've been through quite a lot," says Hershel. "Beth, why don't you get her settled in here? Find her a cell to sleep in, show her around, give her the rundown of how things go around here."

"Does that mean I'm allowed in?" I chime in.

"I don't have a problem with you being here. Rick apparently doesn't either. We'll take a vote tonight or tomorrow morning, but I don't think there should be anything for you to worry about." he says, smiling at me. I feel Beth wrap her arm around me andlead me out of the room, walking up some stairs and leading me into a cell. "This can be yours. Mine is to the left and Carl's to the right on the corner. You're lucky we have an extra for you," she says, smiling at me. "You got a bag?" she asks.

"Yeah. My bag is in the car," I say, sitting down and moving up and down on the bed, hearing it squeak slightly. "Okay, if you need anything I'm here. And I don't mean just right now or around the prison. If you need _anything_ I'm here. I'm gonna go check on Maggie. You should go get your bag and just hang out. Maybe go find Carl. He can show you a few things you can do around here. Maybe sharpen your skills on shooting or something," she says, smiling. "Is that supposed to be saying something about my shooting skills?" I say jokingly, a smile on my face.

"Hey, I didn't say _nothin_'," she says, laughing and backing out of the room.

I look around my cell. There really isn't anything much here, but I haven't had a bed in such a long time. I mean, a _real _bed. Blow up mattresses, cots, medical beds, you name it. But not a real bed. Not in months.

I walk out and to my left, into Beth's cell. She has a few pictures hung up of what looks like her and Maggie, and a small grey dresser like I have in my room. Except she has one more thing. A mirror.

I haven't looked in a mirror in six months. I walk in front of it slowly. My hair is just as red as ever, but I look older. Losing my baby-face a little bit, and my complexion is clearer than it's ever been. My clothes are a mess, but that much doesn't really matter. I look at my face and just stare. I look so much older than I did six months ago. My eyes are just as hazel as they've always been, a color I was lucky to get. My chest is bigger and I'm a little taller, which is amazing considering how ridiculously short I am.

I walk away from my dirty reflection and slowly into Carl's room. I'm not sure why. I'm just curious. His room look exactly the same as mine, besides that the bed isn't made. He has the picture frame of him, his mom and Rick on the small dresser. He must have come in here and put it down sometime when I wasn't paying attention. I pick up the photo and look at it again. This woman, she's pretty. Beautiful, really. I wasn't lying when I said Carl looks like her.

"I heard what you said back there," I hear a voice form behind me says, startling me. I whip myself around and see who's face belongs to the voice. Carl.

"What do you mean?" I ask, setting the picture down on the dresser.

"Everything about your mom and dad." He looks down at his shoes, leaning against the door frame and playing with his hands. "I'm sorry," he says looking up as I slide onto the floor.

"It's fine. It doesn't bother me." I say, really nonchalantly. He looks at me like I'm crazy, walking towards me but not bothering to sit. "What do you mean it '_doesn't bother_' you?" he asks, as if I'm out of my mind.

"I _mean, _it doesn't bother me." he looks at me again, as if asking for some kind of clarification.

"I promised myself that I wouldn't be sad about it... it would only make me depressed, and being by myself like I was, I couldn't do that to myself. I just decided I wouldn't think about it. People die all the time. Especially in a hell like this. There's nothing I can do about it."

I look up at him, and tears are pricking at his eyes. "How could you _say_ that? They were your parents! And what, after all of those years, after all they taught you and all they gave up for you, after the bonds that you made and, hell, just being with them, they just mean nothing to you?" he asks, his voice threatening to yell.

"Hey," I say, sternness in my voice apparent, pissed off that he would say I didn't care. "They don't mean nothing to me. They, themselves mean something. It's just this world that means nothing to me. Their deaths, those goddamned monsters and crazed people trying to kill everyone they meet is what means nothing to me! I don't give a damn what you think about the way that I choose to live, but ignoring my feelings about the matter has worked out just fine for me up until this point, and I'm not gonna sit here and let you critisize the way I choose to live in a fucking zombie apocalypse!" I yell at him, not even realizing I had stood up, was pointing my finger at his chest, close enough to his face that I could feel his breath on mine.

He just stood there, and I watched the shock and anger on his face turn into sympathy. Then he wraps his arms around me. I'm so stunned I just keep my hands in the air around his back, but I can't bring myself to hug him. "I don't want your sympathy," I say into his shoulder.

"Don't think of it as sympathy, then. Think of it as a common interest."

"Common sadness," I say, chuckling into his shoulder. I wrap my arms around him and close my eyes, taking in the feeling that somebody else cares.


	5. To Carl and Emma

Carl and I spent the next few hours just talking on his bunk. We talked all about our lives before the apocalypse, mostly, and how he and his group ended up here at the prison. I found out that his dad was a cop, which would explain the Sheriff's hat. He told me about all of the people in his group that they had lost, including a man named Dale, Shane, his dad's best friend, and his friend Sophia. He even got around to telling me what happened to his mother; how she died giving birth.

I ended up telling him about how before the apocalypse my dad was a chemical engineer, and that my mom was a struggling artist. I said that I get most of my stubbornness and artistic ability from her. That I basically get, well, everything from her, to be honest. I talked about my sister briefly, how she was at college, and that I don't know where she is. He told me to look up; that I would find her eventually.

By the end of the night, I was lying on his bed and he was sitting on on the opposite end from where my head was, his back against the wall, legs over mine. "What about music?" I ask him.

"Never really got into it. Whatever's on the radio, I guess. What about you?"

"Music is my lifeline. Well, I guess was. My gun is kinda my lifeline now, but still."

"What kind of music you like?" he asks.

"Bands. You know, punk bands. I could lift forty of my favorites off the top of my head. And folky stuff. Anything that has an acoustic guitar, you can count me in. As long as it's not Taylor Swift."

We laugh, and Beth appears in the doorway. I prop myself on my elbow. "What's up?" I ask.

"Did you get your bag from the car yet?" she asks, leaning against the door frame.

"Uh, no, not yet. We got a little caught up here," I say, Carl and I chuckling.

"Well, you better go get it, we're gonna lock up cause it's getting dark. Plus, we can get your clothes and stuff ready to wash. We took a vote, and you're allowed to stay," she says, beaming.

I sit up, placing my feet on the floor. "Seriously? That's great!"

"Hey, why wasn't I a part of this vote. I'm part of this group, too, you know." Carl says, a little frustrated.

"Yeah, well, we all figured that your vote was yes anyway considering that the two of you are up here drooling all over each other," she says, and I can see Carl out of my peripheral vision making a face that says "shut up!" I can feel my face heat up.

She quickly adds, "But dinner's ready, so I was told to come get you two." She smiles and waves us out of the cell. As we're walking down the stairs to the mess hall, I look discretely behind me and see Carl staring at me, his cheeks blushed. I look back in front of me quickly and feel my cheeks get warm again.

We all sat and ate dinner, me sitting between Beth and Glenn, and they opened some beers that Glenn apparently found on a run a few days ago, figuring it was the perfect thing to toast the new member of their group. They offered me one and I took it, remembering all of the times my dad would let me try his Budweiser and cheap beer. This was so much better than that.

They offered Carl one, too, but he refused, saying that he remembers what alcohol tastes like, and that he wasn't too fond of it.

"Come on, pretty boy. That was wine, this is man's land!" says Daryl, chuckling and holding the beer out for him to take.

"Yeah, plus you were like ten," adds Glenn, laughing, everybody seeming already drunk from just the smell of the alcohol wafting through the air.

Carl takes the beer, trying to contain his laughter from being put on the spot, and takes a swig. Everybody waits quietly and he puts it down on the table smiling. "Not bad," he says, and everybody cheers. Glenn stands up and raises his beer, the rest of us to follow. "To our newly man-made Carl, and what looks like fun times to come with this new little girl," Glenn says, nudging me with his fist.

"Hey, who you callin' a little girl?" I ask, laughing. He just looks at me and laughs, "Right, this new little teenager." he adds. We all chuckle.

"To Carl and Emma," says Beth.

"To Carl and Emma," we all say in unison, everyone taking a swig of their beer, some more than others. The conversations erupt immediately, everybody probably excited from the alcohol in their systems. I look over to the other end of the table where Carl sits and smile at him. He smiles back, and I tilt my beer towards him and he does the same, both of us toasting silently to each other.


	6. Just Tell Me

After dinner had ended, we all slowly dispersed to our cells, Daryl and Glenn the last one's up. By the time that I was in my room and laying on the bed, I realized that I was in my clothes from the day still. I had left my bag in the car. I was about to stand up from my bed when Carl's figure appeared in my door, startling me.

I put a hand over my heart. "Jeez, Carl. Gimme a little warning next time." I say.

He just smiled a lazy smile, saying "You haven't gotten your bag from the car, yet."

"Uh, yeah. I was actually just about to go and see if I could get it," I asked, obviously confused. He grabbed my hand and started leading me down the stairs and to the entrance of the prison, both of us exiting the building. "How did you know I needed my bag?" I ask.

"Beth told me. She was gonna go to get you but I offered instead," he says, leading me forward and continuously swerving. "Carl," I start, but I'm not quite sure where the sentence was supposed to be heading. Carl trips on something and lets go of my hand, falling forward. He rolls himself over onto his back and doesn't bother to get up. I crouch down next to him. I raise my eyebrows and cock my head. "Carl," I start, "are you drunk?"

He chuckles from the back of his throat, and just smiles at me. "I might be," he says, still smiling.

"I thought you didn't like alcohol," I say jokingly. He laughs again.

"That was wine._ THIS _is _MAN'S LAND," _he yells, cracking himself up. I laugh and shush him.

"How much beer did you even have? I only saw you with the three."

"Daryl gave me one and Glenn gave me one and I already had one and Maggie gave me one," he says, groggily counting on his fingers, still laying on his back. I criss-cross my legs and take a seat next to him, knowing he's not going to be moving any time soon.

"That's four more beers, Carl."

"That's like my age!" he says, ecstatic.

"I think you mean it would be like your age if you were fourteen, which you aren't even. You're thirteen, Carl," I say, explaining it to him as if he _were_ four.

"Oh. Well that's disappointing," he says, frowning. I chuckle.

"You know, we did come out here for a reason," I remind him, and he just stares at the sky. "Carl?"

"Have you looked at the stars recently? Cause they're really pretty," he says. I look up. They're beautiful. I guess in the mess of however long this stupid thing has been going on, I just totally lose myself in this hell. I've forgotten what it was like to just look at the stars without worrying that while I do, I'm going to get my neck eaten out by a zombie.

"You're cute," I hear Carl say. I turn and look at him. "What?" I say, though it barely comes out of my mouth. He chuckles: a thing he can't seem to stop doing. I feel my face getting red, so thank goodness it's almost pitch black where we are so he can't see. "I _saaaaiid,_ you're cute," he repeats. I guess I'm just looking at him, so he decides to elaborate. "You're just so pretty. Just looking up at the stars like nothing matters. I mean, you're always pretty. Just _really _pretty now."

I can just feel my face flush. I don't know what to think. He suddenly yanks on my arm, pulling my face closer so it's inches away from his. He smiles. "Lay down, watch the stars," he says, letting go of my arm so I can lay beside him. I do, and the two of us just watch the stars for a little while, his words running through my head. I keep coming back to the fact that he's ridiculously drunk and doesn't know what he's saying.

I feel his hand grab mine, and I let him, intertwining my fingers with his. It feels nice. Just to let go. _Breathe_. I can't remember the last time I just breathed. The last time I felt_ happy. _Maybe my dad's lessons didn't go to waste after all.

I wake up to a firm hand shaking me. I groggily open my eyes, the light of the morning hitting me like a train. I raise a hand over my eyes and manage to say, "What?" not seeing who is shaking me.

"Girl, 'av you two been out here all night?" I recognize the voice. Daryl.

I prop myself on my elbow, taking my head off of a sleeping Carl's chest, freeing a hand I didn't know he was holding, and rub my eyes. "What time is it?" I ask.

"It's mornin'. How the hell would I know what time it is," he says. "I just woke up to take morning watch, so it's probably like six or seven. Now, how long have you been out here?"

His figure starts to form from around the brightness. I look at him. "I think all night. I don't remember coming out here, so I'd guess... _all night_," I say, surprised I let myself fall asleep when it was very obvious I was lying on a dirt ground.

He looks at me and looks at Carl and raises an eyebrow. "It's nothing, Daryl," I say, trying to be as nonchalant as possible. "The two a'ya seemed pretty close a few minutes ago," he says smirking.

I shoot him a look. "Don't make this something that it's not."

"Alright, alright. The only other person that seen it is Beth, so you two'll be okay." He looks at Carl, standing back up from his crouched over position. "I'll leave you to take care of him. I saw how much he drank last night, and I'm not gonna be the one to deal with that trainwreck."

"You saw how much he drank and you didn't stop him?" I ask, moving myself so I'm sitting up straight.

"He's young; he can do whatever he wants while he's still alive."

"What about you?" I ask as he starts to walk away. "Why aren't you ridiculously hungover?"

He turns around and hits his chest with his fists. "I'm a pro, baby! Years of practice!" I giggle, turning my attention towards a sleeping Carl.

He's cute when he sleeps. His mouth slightly opened and bottom lip pouted out, his features simply relaxed as if nothing is going on outside of our prison fence. He just looks so peaceful. And I know for certain that in a few moments, that peaceful face will have faded into oblivion.

I put a hand on his face and pat him a little bit, trying to wake him up. He doesn't budge. I put another hand on his arm, shaking him. "Carl. Wake up," I whisper as calmly as I can. I shake him a little more and his eyes flutter open, just looking up at me. He smiles for a moment, and I smile back, but it disappears and his face goes contorted, a hand going up to shield his eyes from the light. "Goodmorning, sunshine," I say, smirking like crazy.

He winces at my voice. "Jeez, what time is it?" he mumbles.

"Early," I say, getting a kick out of this. "How ya feelin'?" I ask, incredibly bubbly.

He lifts a finger from his eyes and glares at me. I burst out laughing.

"God! Not so loud!" he says, trying to lift himself up from the ground to sit up. I help him with my hand that was already placed on his arm, and leave it there. He looks at me, noticing the smile on my face. "You must just think this is _soo_ funny, don't you?" I just nod my head, trying not to laugh any louder, knowing he'll throw up if I do.

I lift him up off the ground and wrap both of my hands around his arm, leading him back into the prison as fast as he can possibly walk. Which, let me tell you, is not very fast. I look back to see Daryl watching the two of us from the fence, smiling. He lifts his hands up and makes a heart with them and I just turn around quickly, knowing for a fact that my face is red. I drop a hand from his arm, but keep the other one there to guide him, as his hands are over his eyes to protect him from the sun.

By the time that we're inside the mess hall and Hershel gives him something that's supposed to help the hangover, we're alone. He puts down the glass of red liquid Hershel gave him, a disgusted look on his face. "Man, this stuff is nasty," he says, and I giggle, sitting across from him. "How much exactly did I drink last night?"

"I don't think any of us really know the specifics. You obviously drank a lot, which is all that really matters, mans-land," I say, and he looks at me confused. "Do you even remember anything from last night?"

"No, not really. Besides, you know, toasting and stuff."

"Well, let's see," I say, trying to recall the events of the night before. "By the first beer, you were completely fine. Then you got a second from Daryl, and a third from Glenn. I'll leave out the more embarrassing parts of the evening, but after the girls left except for me, you guys sang multiple different songs about America, you know, Amazing Grace and stuff like that, danced on the dinner table, shot multiple bullets into the ceiling, had a food fight, threw your knives at each other, which I had to be the adult and intervene, might I add, melted bullets with Daryl's lighter, almost got killed by Walkers when you had a race outside of the fence, and caught fire to a mattress. Oh, and serenaded me." I say, repulsing at my last two words.

"I serenaded you?" he says, obviously feeling a little disgusted with himself.

"A lovely rendition of 'Isn't She Lovely.'" I say, holding back my laughter by biting my lip. "And try to keep in mind that wasn't even the worst of it."

"How much did I really drink, then?"

"Either five, six or seven beers. I can't be sure. You could ask someone else, but I doubt that anybody remembers anything about last night except for me."

He holds his hand to his head as little bits and pieces from the nigh before click in his head. He looks up at me. "Well, then how did I end up outside?" I blush and he notices, intrigue filling his features.

"Well," I start, not sure how to tell him we spent the whole night holding hands and me sleeping on his chest without turning crimson. "You came to my room and told me that Beth sent you to help me get my stuff from the car, but by the time we got outside and almost to the car, you fell and wouldn't get up, so we watched the stars and fell asleep together."

He looks at me, confused as to why I blushed and then a look of realization washes his face. "I called you pretty." he says, just staring at me. I avoid his eyes, really feeling the red in my cheeks. "Yeah. You did." I look back at him. He's smiling. Not a 'ha-ha, you're blushing' kind of smile. A sweet smile to signify that he meant what he said.

"Well, you should drink the rest of that. Wouldn't want to ruin your day with a headache!" I say, obviously feeling awkward, and I stand up and leave the cafeteria, not letting him getting another word in. I lean up against the wall and breathe in deep, Beth smirking at me from up the stairs. She nods her head for me to follow her, so I do.

She goes into my cell, looking around with fake surprise on her face. "That's weird. I don't see any of your stuff in here!"

"Shut up, he's going to hear you!" I whisper/yell.

"Hey. I didn't say anything crazy. Just noticing your bag wasn't here. Why are you getting all defensive?" She gasps. "Maybe it's because you have a-" I put my hand over her mouth because she's yelling. I remove my hand slowly. "Crush." she whispers.

I just look at her, trying to have an attitude with my arms crossed, even though I can basically see the red radiating from my cheeks.

"Come on, Em. Just tell me." I look at her.

She grabs my arms and squeezes lightly. "Come on! Who am I gonna tell?" I motion my head towards the door, meaning Carl.

"I wouldn't." she says, making an X across her heart.

"Just tell me: do you like him?"

"I don't know," I finally say, being as honest as my mind will allow.

"Don't you lie to me, Emma. Just tell me if you like him."

"I just told you. I don't know."

"Come on, just be honest!" she shakes me a little.

I pause, really thinking it over. "Maybe... Maybe I do." I mumble out. She squeals and hugs me. "Not. A WORD." I remind her. She zips her lips with her fingers, and skips out of my cell, leaving me totally starstruck. I take a moment to think about the words that just came out of my mouth, and think it better to just not think about it. I'm living in the zombie apocalypse. I'm not going out of my way to have a relationship.

But then it struck me: What my dad would say.

That it means I'm not going out of my way to be happy.

I sit down on my bed and just cry.


	7. Valerie

zombie_apocalypse_ready/set?id=111941474

After a while of just laying on my bed, I heard Rick and Daryl come back with the others. They went to go meet with the Governor, one of the things that I learned about the other night. I looked around the corner and into Carl;s room to make sure that he wasn't there, and looked into my reflection. My eyes were red and puffy. I'd have to just listen to what Rick has to say from here, because I know if Beth of Carl saw me like this, they would make a big deal out of it.

I see Rick walk into the cell block and pace a little, everybody staring at him for some kind of conformation over what exactly happened today. I look down the stairs and see everybody, though they don't acknowledge me because they don't see me. I do see Carl look around for me, but I'm not there. I lean up against the railing from above, so I'm not looking down at them, and just listen carefully. "So I met this Gov'nor. Sat and talked with him for a while." He starts. "Just the two of ya?" asks who I'm assuming is Merle, though I was never properly introduced. I hear him mumble something but I can't make it out.

"He wants the prison. Wants us gone. Dead." I look around me at the empty floor I'm sitting on. I never thought of a prison as a home. I've never really thought of anywhere as a home, as we moved so much when I was a kid. But this place... it's kept these people safe. Now they could be trading that in. _I _could be trading that in. I'm a part of this group. Like hell am I going to let this place get taken from us. _Us._

"He wants us dead... for what we did to Woodbury." He takes a long pause, everybody taking in their own thoughts on the matter. "_We're going to war._"

Everybody disperses, and I see Carl look at me from the corner of his eye. He tips his hat and keeps walking wherever he was headed, leaving myself alone to my thoughts.

What have I gotten myself into?

Basically everybody is outside about a half an hour later. I'm in, laying on my bunk. I was waiting for my face to deflate itself, but I dozed off for about fifteen minutes. When I woke up, nobody was here except for Carol and Beth, who were both having polite chit-chat inside the mess hall. When I walked in, they smiled at me, and I noticed the little baby girl in Beth's arms.

I walked over, astonishment on my face. "This is Judith?" I ask, touching her cheek lightly with my finger. Her skin is so soft. Clean. Clean from dirt, but clean from the world. "Can I hold her?"

"You know how?" asks Carol. "Yeah, I had a baby cousin. His name was Brian. He was cute. Looked a lot like what she looks like now." I say, the smile plastered on my face from this new found innocence in front of me.

Beth passes Judith over to me and my smile gets softer. "Hi, Judith. I'm Emma." I whisper lightly to her. I start walking around the table and she plays with one of my fingers. I immediately start singing. It's a song that my mom used to sing to me when I was kid whenever I had nightmares. She had such a lovely voice. Always said that I got mine from her.

watch?v=pPv3O2kQb...

_"Hold me close and hold me fast_  
_This magic spell you cast,_  
_is La Vie En Rose._

_When you kiss me, heaven sighs  
and though I close my eyes,  
I see la vie en rose._

_When you press me to your heart  
I'm in a world apart,  
a world where roses bloom._

_And when you speak, angels sing from above.  
Everyday words seemed to turn into love songs._

Give your heart and soul to me  
and life will always be,  
la vie en rose."

When I finished singing, Beth and Carl started clapping from behind me. I turn around and smile, only then noticing Carl standing in the doorway. I blush a little, knowing very well that he just heard me sing. "You have a beautiful voice," he says.

"Thanks," I say, smiling. "It's been a while. It feels good. God knows before now it was my life."

"Was that La Vie En Rose? By Edith Piaf?" asks Carol.

I beam when she recognizes it. "Yeah! It is! Man, you wouldn't believe the number of people that I sang that song to who didn't know it. Most didn't even know Edith Piaf."

"I recognized the words, but it just sounded so much more mellow." she says, smiling.

"Yeah, this was my mom's rendition," I say, the thoughts of my mom singing it filling my senses. Part of me wants to burst out into tears right then, but I know that her singing this song to me was a happy memory. She would take out her ukulele or guitar and play it for me, until I learned how to play it and memorized the words. We would both sing it every night before we slept. We never lost track of it. Not even when the world lost itself.

Only when I lost her.

I tell them that I need to finally get my bag from the car and put it in my room, so Beth takes Judith back and I pass Carl without giving him a second glance. I'm halfway to the car when I hear Carl's footsteps behind me. I jog to the car and pull out my bag, already feeling tears prick at my eyes. I promised her I would be strong. I can't just cry whenever I think of her. I slam the door shut and turn around, running straight into Carl. "Oh, God, sorry," I say, trying to move past him. He grabs a hold of my arms and looks at me. "Hey," he says, obvious concern in his voice.

I look up at him. "What's wrong? You're crying," he says, putting a thumb on my cheek to wipe away a tear I didn't even know was there.

"Look, Carl, I get that you want to help and stuff, but I just need to go," I say, breaking free from him and just letting the tears fall, racing my way back up to my room. I reach into my large bag and pull out the clothes, folding them and piling them to be washed later. I take out my dead MP3 player and put it on my dresser, and also take out my blanket my aunt sewed for me when I was four and place it on my bed. I leave a couple more things in the bag, figuring I'll get organized later. I search into a separate pocket and find three picture frames and one seperate picture.

The first picture is of me, my best friend, Sam, and her boyfriend, Charlie, in front of our favorite ice cream shop, basically our favorite place in the world. We took it about two years after the apocalypse happened, going back for one last look. My dad took the picture with a poloroid camera, so the picture looks kind of funny, but that's all right. They're two best friends, and the best memories I ever had. I wish I knew where they were now.

The second picture is of Delilah and I. Our faces are pressed together and I'm cracking up laughing. I think that's why I liked it so much. We looked ridiculous. But that was just us. It was who we were.

The last picture is of my mom and dad on their fifteenth wedding anniversary, clanking their glasses of champagne together. They got married when they were twenty and had my sister when they were twenty-one. They looked great in this picture. In love. Happy. That's all that ever mattered to the two of them.

(Picture at top) The last picture isn't in a frame. It never was in a frame in the first place, but I didn't want to leave without it. It's of my mom. It's just her sitting in front of a piano and laughing. She got me that piano for my eigth birthday. Not that we were really piling up the cash, believe me, we weren't. She got my grandparents to pay for most of it. She knew how much I wanted to learn. My dad took that picture right after she had gotten done playing her very enthusiastic version of happy birthday to me while playing, which she then proceeded to break down and do beat-boxing. God, I loved that. I remember every moment of that to this day. I just hope I don't forget. On the back of the picture was written _"To our wonderful and beautiful girl. May you put your talents to good use. Find heart, my darling." xoxo - Mom_ I take the picture and slide it into the bottom side of my pillow case. I hadn't really noticed I'd been crying the whole time I was looking at these.

I wiped the tears and stains away from my face and chained into some fresh clothes. I'm in the middle of taking the picture frames and lining them up the way I want when Carl walks in. I turn around and give him a sad smile. "I'm sorry," I say, knowing he was just trying to help and I pushed him away. "It's fine. I just want to know what's up with you?" I sit down on the edge of my bed and he notices the picture frames. He walks over to the dresser and picks one up. "This you?" he says, turning it so I can see. "Yeah. That's me and my older sister, Delilah." I kick my feet around under and out of the bottom of my bed. I feel like he's inspecting my personal life. I don't know why.

"This is you, too," he says, picking up the picture of Me, Sam and Charlie. I tell him about them, and he just looks at the picture the entire time, nodding occasionally. He puts the picture back down and picks up the last one. "Who's this?" He walks over and sits next to me, and we both push our backs up against the concrete wall behind us. I cross my legs and take the picture into my hands.

"This is my dad, David, and my mom. Valerie." He must be able to just feel the awful feeling coming out of me, and puts a hand on my arm to comfort me. The second his skin makes contact with mine just makes me feel like I want to cry. And I know why. Because this boy, for whatever reason, feels like home. And right now, home just hurts. I burst into tears, and he just brings my head into his chest, letting me cry into him. I do just that, feeling unbelievably weak. Maybe I just need to feel like this now. Get it out of the way. Either way, I'm hoping I won't for much longer.


	8. Characters

Carl Grimes ~ Chandler Riggs .

Daryl Dixon ~ Norman Reedus Season_three_daryl_dixon

Rick Grimes ~ Andrew Lincoln .  
the-walking-dead-rick-grimes

Emma Peterson ~  
alone-red-hair-girl-1280x800

Valerie Peterson ~ Cristin Milioti .  
1825507

Delilah Peterson ~ Emily Rudd .  
5081985233_21dafdb24d_z

David Peterson ~ Jamie Dornan .  
jamie-dornan-4-435


	9. Find Heart, My Darling

_I wake up groggily, my eyes seeing light over their lids, but not having enough motivation to actually open them. I bring up my hands to rub my eyes, but they're grabbed, and I immediately stand up and force my hands out of the ones holding mine. When I had backed away from the figure, the light started coming into my vision less so that I could see. That's when I saw her. Mom._

_"Darling, what's happened to you?" she asks, and takes a step closet, putting her hands on my arms. _

_"Mom? Is that really you?" I ask, tears already filling my eyes. She wraps her arms lightly around me, but I forcefully pull her in and squeeze her, savoring the feeling of my mother's arms wrapped around me once more. "Of course it's me, honey. I don't believe that this is you, though." She pulls away._

_"What do you mean?" I ask, keeping a hold of her hands as we stand in the whiteness surrounding us._

_"You've been hardened, my dear. This world, I think, has ruined you." She looks very sad._

_"Ruined me? If anything, it's made me stronger," I say, feeling a little defensive, the tears in my eyes stopping their flow._

_"You shouldn't _be _any stronger than you already were. You're fourteen. You shouldn't feel the need to be strong or take care of yourself." She pauses. "I should be here for you."_

_"Oh, mom, don't even worry. I'm okay. I'm fine. I've found some really great people. We're in a little trouble right now, but it's all going to be okay. We'll fight. They won't let anything happen to me," I explain._

_"That's not the point. I should still be here. Regardless of if you are safe, which in this world you never truly are, I should be watching over you."_

_"But aren't you already?" She gives me a sad smile. "That's up for you to decide."_

_"I don't know what to think about this, though. You could be watching me from, you know, up there, but how would I relaly know?"_

_"You wouldn't, love. You just have to believe. Have a little faith."_

_"You should be talking. I got my beliefs from you, you know. And what exactly did you believe in?" Both of us say "The non-believers" at the same time and we giggle._

_"You are so strong. You are going to beat this world," she says, and tears fill my eyes. "Mom. No." I say shakily. She starts again, "You are going to find more people that will hurt you, but you are going to fight with all of your will and you will come out a survivor." Tears are pouring down my cheeks and I can't hear anything but my heartbeat in my head and her voice._

_"What about dad?"_

_"Your father is fine. He's happy."_

_"Like he always is," I say, letting out a choked laugh._

_"You need to stop being like me. Find faith. Find less courage and more happiness. I know it's hard in a place like this, but I believ ein your capabilities that you can do this. That you can power through and make the best of the limited things that you have. I believe that you can be happy. Your father does, too." I'm about to say something when she cuts me off. "Don't you dare say that happiness is not your first priority, because you know very well that if those words came out of your mouth, your father would come down there personally and beat the living hell out of you." We both laugh, though mine is shaky and filled with agony._

_"You are going to do great things. I'm not going to be around for your first kiss or your first love, or my grandchildren or your first real true feeling of happiness and peace. I'm not going to be around for your birthdays or your celebrations of your survival, but I sware to you that I am going to be _right here. _I love you dearly." A tear escapes her large, hazel eyes and mine are ridiculously pouring._

_"You know very well not to take the easy way out. Find people that are actually going to treat you the way your need to be. Pull your weight. Don't you dare take anything that gets handed to you for granted. And... And live. Don't always be so caught up on us. We love you, so so much. We are always here, even if you can't see us. Don't be sad just because you can't see us, because I hate seeing my little girl cry." She kisses my forehead and brings me in for another hug. _

_"You are going to be okay."_

_"Happy?" I ask._

_"Happy." she says and pulls away from the hug, about to fade away. "Wait! Mom!" I grab her wrist and she comes back into full view. "Will you sing with me?" She smiles. _

_She starts. "Hold me close and hold me fast, this magic spell you cast, is la vie en rose."_

_Then I sing, "When you kiss me heaven sighs, and though I close my eyes, I see la vie en rose."_

_"When you press me to your heart," she sings._

_"I'm in a world apart," I sing._

_We sing in unison, harmonizing, "A world where roses bloom. And when you speak, angels sing from above. Everyday words seem to turn into love songs..."_

_We pause and she looks at me, smiling and crying. "Give your heart and soul to me," she sings._

_"And life will always be," I sing._

_In unison we pause and breathe in deep, holding hands and singing one very last, "La Vie En Rose."_

_She pulls me into one last hug and whispers "Find heart, Emma. Find heart, and you'll find happiness." She pulls away and lets go, waving goodbye as she slowly fades away._


	10. Inner Circle

zombie_apocalypse_ready/set?id=111940639

I woke up, a sharp pain in my head. Memories of my mother's dying words to me flow through my veins, words she just repeated to me not too long ago. I don't know if she was real. It felt so much like it was..

I lazily open my eyes, my head lying on the chest of a familiar face, a strong arm wrapped around my back. Carl.

I put a hand on his chest and try to prop myself up. We must have fallen asleep. I just remember crying. That's it. I don't even remember how long we were there for.

Carl's still sleeping, so I maneuver around him and leave his bed, combing through my hair with my fingers. I walk out of my cell, and look to the windows near the ceiling on the wall. It's dark outside. I don't see anybody in the mess hall, and the lights are off on my floor. I walk to the cell left of mine and look for Beth.

She sees me appear in the doorway and puts down whatever book she was reading. "Hey there, sleepy head. What's up?"

"Did you guys already have dinner?" I ask, leaning against the wall.

"Yeah. Everyone has been asleep for, like, two hours."

"Why didn't anybody come to get Carl or me?"

She giggles. Well, when I went in there, Carl told me to just have dinner without the two of you." she says. "Said that he couldn't bear to wake you up, but there was no way he was going to leave your side." I just look at her. "And let me tell you! Daryl and Rick were not too happy with the idea of you two being all snuggly." she says, giggling. I smile and am about to walk out when she stands and stops me. "Have you had a shower since you've been here?" she asks. I feel my heart drop. "You guys have showers?!" I ask, not seeming to care that other people are sleeping.

She links my arm with hers. "I'll take you. You can lock the door from inside so nobody will bother you." She lead me down a few separate hallways I haven't seen before. "I'll get you some fresh clothes an set them outside the shower room door." We finally reach a door that she pushes open to reveal a room filled with separate shower-heads, each separated by half of a wall made of linoleum.

She walks in front of me and shows me how to use it and how to change the hot water. She exits and I'm left to shower.

I strip down quickly and stand under the shower head, turning on the water. The hot water pours down on my face, soaking me through. I swear, hot water has never once felt so good. I burst out laughing, my smile not fading as I run my fingers through my hair, the red in it dripping out and staining the tiled floor beneath me red. I wash off my face, lots of dirt smudging onto my hands as I clean myself.

I take some time just standing under the hot water, until I hear a knock at the door. I assume it's Beth, and I've probably been here for about twenty minutes, so I turn off the water and walk towards the door, drying myself off with a towel that was folded up clean on the floor.

I slowly open the door to make sure nobody is there, an grab the pile of clothes off of the ground and shut the door again. I slip on the clothes, consisting of underwear, sweatpants and a small t-shirt. I look in the long mirror at my face, combing my hand through my hair again and getting rid of any knots. My face looks so much softer than it did before. It's amazing that there was a girl behind that mess of dirt.

I walk out of the bathroom, remembering my way back to my cell block, and make my way up the stairs. I look into my cell and see that Carl's gone. I'm about to crawl into my bed when I just have this urge that I shouldn't. I wander into Beth's cell and see that she's sleeping, though not under her covers. I wander over to her bed.

I take the book off of her chest and onto her dresser. She must've fallen asleep reading.

I walk back over and slide her covers out from under her and tuck her in, feeling as if she's my older sister and that I've known for my entire life. I kiss her forehead and turn of the light in her room, and stop before I walk into the next room. I slowly being myself around the door frame and a teenage boy looks up from what looks like a comic book.

He puts it down next to him an looks up at me, placing his feet on the floor. "Hey. You okay?" he asks, concern in his eyes.

"Yeah, I'm alright." I say. I don't really know why I came in here. I just wanted to see him, I guess. I stand there, playing with my hands and he just looks at me in silence. He stands and walks over to me, lifting my chin with his finger. "You sure?" he asks. I feel my face heat at his contact. I just nod my head, feeling that if I tried to talk my voice wouldn't work.

"Look," I start, my voice coarse. "About today, I-"

"It's fine. Don't even worry about it." he says. "It's late. You should get some sleep." Oh. That's why I came in here.

He's slightly pushing me back out of his cell door when I stop him by grabbing his wrists. "Yeah. Look, I was, uh, just wondering if maybe... If you wouldn't mind.. sleeping with me tonight?" I say. His face shows a kind of understanding and he just nods slowly, and I take his hand an we walk into my cell. Both of us slowly slide into my bed, and he wraps an arm around my waist. I feel his lips on my cheek, and then his head in my hair, and I can't seem to sleep. Probably because of how much I've gotten the past few days. It's a lot more than I'm used to.

I decide to close my eyes regardless, breathing in the now familiar scent of the boy behind me. "Night, Emma." I hear him say, and I feel butterflies in my stomach at the deepness of his voice. "Night, Sheriff." I say back, and can feel him smile into my hair. I close my eyes again and fall asleep in no time, dreaming of light an dark living together in harmony.

"Do you even know why you do the things you do? The decisions you make?" I hear. It's the sound of Rick's voice. I open my eyes slowly, the weight of Carl up against my back. I pause and look at his face, taking in the way he sleeps. I hear Rick's voice again. "If we give the Gov'nor Michonne, Woodbury stands down." I close my eyes, half of me hoping that I'll fall back asleep and won't hear whatever he has to say, half of me hoping my lack of sight will strengthen my hearing.

"I don't like it, but it's what needs to be done. We need to make it quiet. We need your help with that." There's a long pause.

"You ain't told any o' the others yet?" says the voice of Merle.

"Just Hershel. Daryl. And you."

"Hmph. Inner circle. I'm honored." Merle goes on and on about how Rick should give the Gov'nor the girl and he'll just torture her. Tells him he's cold. I shut my eyes tighter. I just don't get it. What the hell is so wrong with Michonne? Part of me thinks it'd be best to give her to him. It would keep us safe. But this is wrong. I know for a fact that this is wrong.

"We need to get her to the Gov'nor by noon." says Rick. _Shit. _

zombie_apocalyps...

I had slipped out of bed before Carl was awake. I wanted to stay and wait for him to wake up, but he just slept and slept for so damn long, and I was getting so damn hungry.

I make my way down to the mess hall, dressed in fresh clothes, braiding my hair in the back as well. I'm a big fan of dresses. Nothing fancy, but just short casual ones. They keep me cool especially now. This one is dirty, but so are the rest of them, so I don't really care. I put on my combat boots and walk downstairs. Basically everybody is down there eating breakfast. The only one's not here are Rick and Merle. Who the hell knows what kind of evil thing they could be planning.

Michonne is talking and smiling, completely unaware that in less than a few hours, she could be in the hands of a man who's not only out to kill her, but out to make that killing as slow and painful as possible.

Beth sees me and stands up, waving me over to get me some oatmeal. I take the bowl and sit down next to her, talking all about last night quietly, as she had seen me and Carl this morning, apparently. Maggie stands up and gets my attention. "Hey, will you go wake up Carl? Some of the boys are going on a run, and we gotta get the walkers distracted. You can come along too, if you want." she says to me. She waves me over to the side with her as well. i wave goodbye to Beth and look at her.

"Hey, I just wanted to apologize. I know I was pretty thrown off by your arriving here. I was just in a kind of argument with Glenn at the time. Never got to say I was sorry to you." She smiles sadly.

"It's fine. Really. No big deal," I say, smiling. She puts a hand on my arm and walks away to the kitchen, getting pots and pans and things to get rid of the walkers. I trot my way back up the stairs and look into my room.

When I don't see him, I walk my way towards his room. I see Carl's bare back, soon to have a shirt put over it. He doesn't see me, so I duck behind the wall and breathe for a moment, my heart beating hard in my chest, before turning back and running straight into him. He grabs my arms and smiles, though it fades a moment after.

"You okay, Em? Your face is all flushed."

I feel it getting worse. "You know, I feel like you're asking me that question a lot lately," I say, avoiding really answering the question.

"Well, I just wanna make sure," he says, his smile returning. I look at him, getting lost for a moment before remembering my cause to come up here in the first place. "Hey, um," I say, snapping myself out of my trance. "Maggie wants you and I to help her lure away walkers. You in?"

He nods and we leave down the stairs and into the yard, Maggie handing us some pots and things. We bang them together as they get the car ready to drive off, making as much noise as possible and yelling to them.

"I bet I know what would really get their attention," I hear Carl yell.

"And what exactly is that?" I ask. He runs over to me really fast and places a quick kiss on my cheek before darting back to his original position. My cheeks get warm again, but keeping hitting the pots just the same. When Maggie says it's time to go, we do, walking back to Rick and Michonne and back into the prison.

He was just talking to her. She was giving tactics about how to get rid of the Gov'nor. She didn't even know. And I kept my mouth shut.


	11. My Brother

zombie_apocalypse_ready/set?id=112575714

"Hey, Em? You wanna join us for bible study?" I see Beth's head peak out from behind the wall of my cell.

"Bible study?" I say, sitting up in my bed. There isn't really much to do around here, so I just kind of hang out with Carl. His dad wanted him for something, so I was left by myself.

"Yeah. I mean, it isn't a real bible study. My daddy will read scriptures out of it and we just... pray. I'm not really sure where you stand on all of this." she says. I don't even know where I stand. Maybe I should go. It'll be better than sitting all alone, and maybe it'll help me find the faith and heart my mom was talking about.

"I'd love to."

We all sat, the four of us, holding hands as Hershel read from a scripture. I just closed my eyes and thought. Trying to relate the words he was saying to myself. Make any sense of them. I really wasn't doing a good job. But maybe I just wasn't trying hard enough. So, instead of thinking, I just close my eyes and breathe.

Hershel pauses and we all look at him, a little concerned. Beth releases my hand and reaches for his across the small table. "You okay?" she asks.

He looks at the two of them. "What I wouldn't do to keep you girls safe." We all look at him, each of us smiling. I was included in this. This man barely knows me. I could be self-absorbed and think that maybe he only said it to not offend me, but at this point I wouldn't even care if that was the reason. I miss having somebody to care for me. It just... feels nice.

We're interrupted by Rick walking in, and Hershel getting up to go speak with him.

Carl found me later in with Beth in her room, and told us that Rick wanted to say something. We followed him outside where we all waited in silence for Rick to come by. Tell us whatever he needed to. It was just Beth, me, Carl and Hershel, Carol and the baby for the time being. I sat next to Carl, both of us facing outwards, fairly close to each other. He took my hand in his unexpectedly and put both of our hands underneath the table so it wasn't so obvious. I intertwined our fingers, and we just sat in silence.

Rick came walking through with Maggie and Glenn following not too far behind.

He looks at all of us for a moment. "When I met with the Gov'nor, he offered me a deal. He said..." he pauses. "He said he would leave us alone if I gave him Michonne." I squeeze Carl's hand, hoping that this isn't going where I think it is. I see Carl put his head down. He squeezes my hand back. I know that Michonne and him were just starting to get along. "And I was gonna do that," he says, sounding surprised by himself.

"To keep us safe." Everyone either looks saddened or stone hard. "Well, I changed my mind. But now Merle to Michonne to fulfill the deal and Daryl went to stop him and now I don't know if it's too late. I was wrong not to tell you. I'm sorry." He pauses again. "What I said last year, that first night after the farm. You can't be like that. You can't. What we do, what we're willing to do. Who we are! It's not my call! It can't be. I couldn't sacrifice one of us for the greater good because... because we _are_ the greater good_. We're_ the reason we're here, not me. This is life and death. How you live and how you die; It isn't up to me. I'm not your Gov'nor. _We _choose to go. _We _choose to stay. We stick together. We vote. We can stand and we can fight, or we can go." It's silent as Rick walks away.

Carl squeezes my hand one last time before letting go and walking away. I turn to face a very sad looking Beth, and reach my hand over the table to cover hers comfortingly. We all sit there, not saying a word. I feel like I'm going to die. I _knew_. I could have_ said something_. And I _didn't_. What the hell is wrong with me? I may have just cost a life. Hell, maybe even three lives. I'm such an idiot.

And nobody knows that I knew.

That night at dinner, nobody spoke. Daryl and Merle weren't even back yet. We all ate dinner in silence, including Michonne who had come back and only told Rick hat happened. I had spent a couple of hours just lying on the bed in my room. I wish I had a book or music or something to calm my nerves. I just need to stop thinking about it. Nobody died. Everything will be fine. Sure, they aren't back yet, but a lot of times on runs people don't come back for a while, right? I don't know how long I've been laying here, but it sure as hell feels like forever.

I'm sick of feeling like this, and I know very well that the more I think about it, the less sleep I'm going to get. I walk out of my cell and almost make it to Carl's until I hear a slamming of what sounds like glass on a table. I pause for a moment, looking at Carl with a mental debate going on in my head. I decide to turn around and head for the stairs. All of the lights are off except the ones in the mess hall. I see Daryl. That slamming glass was what looks like a bottle of whiskey.

This can't be good.

I make my way down the stairs, trying to be as quiet as possible as to not wake anybody else up. Daryl sees me and just looks at me. I stand in the doorway of the mess hall, and wait for him to say something. He holds up the bottle of whiskey in my direction. I sigh and walk over to him, taking it from him and swallowing a whole lot of it, it burning my throat on the way down. I give him back the bottle and remain standing. His eyes are bloodshot like he's been crying.

He takes another swig of the drink and looks down. I walk around to his side of the table and sit down next to him as we sit in silence. It's like this for a long time, both of us just taking turns drinking form the bottle, me taking much less than he is. "I just wanted my brother back." he says, putting his hands to his head and elbows on the table, covering so I can't see his face. I see his body shake and know he's crying. I scootch closer to him and wrap an arm around him, knowing very well that Merle is dead. And that it's my fault. But I focus more on the weeping man to my left than the guilt to my right.

I squeeze him in my arm, putting my right hand on his arm and laying my head on his shoulder, just letting him cry. I can't remember how long we were there or when I went back upstairs, only knowing that I woke up alone in my room, feeling empty and guilty and hurt. This is definitely not what my mom was talking about.


	12. I Did What I Had to Do

zombie_apocalyps...  
We are fighting back. I found that out a couple days ago.

Carl was laying on my bedroom floor in the morning, waiting for me to get up. When I finally did he sat on the end of my bed and just told me everything. I don't know how long he went on and on for. He told me about all of the places and people he had seen and lost, and how he didn't want to leave this place. He complained about his father being a dumb-ass and just told me how utterly pissed off he was that he wasn't allowed to fight. He even told me about how he felt when all of the people he knew had died. How this felt so much worse.

This place was home. Now it was being sacrificed because of his dad's ignorance.

I barely followed everything that he was saying to me. Some of it made sense and some of it didn't. He just needed to vent, and I just needed to listen. So that's exactly what I did.

I wasn't sure if he was right, but I knew for a fact that he was upset, so I wasn't going to question it.

He just seemed so hurt. It killed me to see him like that. But it was amazing to know how much he trusted me. It was just under the worst of circumstances.

We were all told to pack, so we all did separately, leaving each other to collect the things that mattered the most to us and put them once again at risk.

I took all of my picture frames and put them back into my duffle bag, as well as my clothes back into it, as well. The last thing I take is to put in my bag is the photo out form my pillow case. I take it and put it carefully in between the clothes, and feel around my bag for my locket.

On my twelth birthday, my mom went out to get me something for my birthday. Considering the circumstances, she could really take anything she wanted. She went to a jewelry store and found a locket that she thought I would love. It was a heart with a silver chain and was silver itself, a little gold rim on the outside of the heart. There was a key that belongs to it as well, but I think I lost it either somewhere in this bag or somewhere in a supermarket.

I take the necklace and try to put it around my neck but fail miserably. I go next door to Carl, who is also packing and hold it up to him. He stands from his bed and looks at it, taking it in his hand and motioning for me to turn around. I do just that, lifting my hair in my hand so he can hook it around my neck. He gets the hook on and grazes his hand along the back of my neck making me shiver. I turn around and he wraps his arms around my waist.

"Where'd you get that? I've never seen it before." he says, completely nonchalant, as if having his arms around me is the most normal thing in the world. I reciprocate and put my hands on his forearms.

"Um, my mom got it for me. She told me only to wear it when I'm scared. That it'll give me hope and security. It has a really small picture of her and my dad on the inside of it, but I don't know where the key to open it is," I explain. He just nods slowly, taking the necklace in his hand.

"How come you always wear dresses?" he asks, trying to lighten the mood, obviously noticing the dress I was wearing now. We sway back and forth a little.

"You know, I couldn't really give you a reason if I wanted to," I say, a smile plastered on my face.

He leans forward and kisses my forehead, and I feel it tingle when his lips leave. He slowly releases his contact from my waist and grabs my hands, placing his forehead on mine. "You're scared, then?" he asks.

I pause, not really sure. "I don't know. I guess I am." I say. We envelopes me in his arms, hugging me close.

"I am, too."

After we were both done packing, we walked outside to put our bag sin the car. I walked behind him, and when Rick tried to grab him, he just shoved him off. I gave Rick an apologetic look as I followed Carl to the car, both of us giving our things to Beth.

She looks at me, obviously seeing how out of it Carl is, and I just shrug, pretending as if I wouldn't have an answer if she asked me what was wrong with him, even though I could probably recite everything that he said to me earlier this morning.

"I've never seen him this mad," I overhear Glenn say to Rick. "Even with Lori. He just... shut down," he says. I'm the only person he's spoke to and not yelled at the past few days. "He's still a kid. It's easy to forget," says Rick. Not in a world like this. It would be best to forget, but like hell any of us could.

We set up booby-traps all around the prison, and lied in wait. Carl wasn't happy about this. Not just about everything from before, but now he was being forced to sit on the sidelines and wasn't even allowed to fight like the rest of them. Daryl wanted me by him when the Governor came - told me that not only did he want to make sure I was safe, but that I had amazing skills with a gun - but I told him it would be better if I was with Carl to keep him stable. He agreed, so I went with him, Beth, Judith and Hershel.

We were sitting in the forest for a while until we heard gunshots break out from nowhere. Carl was pacing and trying to get as good of a look at the scene as he possibly could, listening in on the fighting going on. I kept a hold on my gun, tight with both of my hands. I had a bad feeling about this. Not about the fight, about us. Out here by ourselves, as if something awful were about to happen.

"I should be there," says Carl. I stand up and walk to him, placing a hand on his back, keeping my other wrapped tight around my gun, prepared for anything.

When the gunfire stops we just stand there, waiting for some kind of cue to come out from the forest. All of a sudden, a boy, probably about sixteen or seventeen, comes running through and mine and Carl's gun immediately shoot up.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" says the boy. "Don't shoot."

"Drop the weapon, son," says Hershel, his gun also pointed up at the boy.

"Alright. Sure. Here," he says, shaking and trying to hand off the gun to Carl. He looks absolutely terrified, and I feel myself slowly lower my gun and wait for Carl to take his. Both of their eyes are wild. I keep my gun tight in my grip, though.

"Take it." says the boy, leaning down to place the gun on the ground next to Carl. He's trying his hardest, keeping eye contact with Carl and Hershel, when a bullet goes through his head. He drops to the ground.

It almost doesn't feel real.

Hershel stands up straight and just stares at him. I do the same thing. He just _shot _someone. There's realization in his eyes at what he just did, and he slowly puts the gun down, and we all walk in silence back to the prison, Carl in front, not making eye contact with anybody the whole way back.

When we get back to the prison I follow Carl in with Hershel behind me. Rick tries to hug Carl, but Carl breaks it. "Dad," he starts. Rick looks at him. "I'm going to Woodbury." Rick stands back up and runs his hands through his hair, frustrated. "Carl..."

"I did my job out there. Just like everybody. Took out one of the Governor's soldiers."

Hershel interrupts. "The kid was running away. Stumbled across us."

"No, he drew on us!" Carl says, getting defensive.

"Well, I'm sorry you had to do that," says Rick, the most understanding person in the room for that moment.

"It's what I was there for," Carl replies. I stand behind him, back and foot against the wall, waiting for all of this to blow over, even though I'm sure it won't. "I'm going with you." he says, and simply walks away, leaving the two of them and me to listen to whatever it is that they have to say.

"The poor kid was scared. He was giving his gun to us," says Hershel. I think I'm with him on this. I hate to be, because I hate to be against Carl. I definitely think he was in the wrong, though.

"He said he drew." says Rick. Hershel simply shakes his head. "Carl said it was in defense."

"I was there. He didn't have to shoot. He had every reason not to." says Hershel.

"Well, maybe it looked like that to you but-"

"Rick!" He pauses. "I'm telling you, he gunned that kid down." Rick just looks at him and doesn't say anything. Hershel turns to me. "Even ask her." he says. How on earth could he know that I agree with him? Maybe because I didn't walk next to Carl on our way back here. Even then, I barely knew if what he did was wrong. Hershel is pretty smart, though. He knew what I was thinking even before I knew.

Rick looks to me for conformation. I nod my head slowly in agreement and Rick runs a hand through his hair, knowing that if I think it's true then it must be, considering me and Carl's relationship. Hershel hobbles off and Rick just stands there, taking it all in. I decide to leave, too, knowing my presence might bother him or he might ask me a question about this that I sure as hell am not going to be able to answer.

I walk over to Carl who's sitting outside, everyone unpacking their things from the car. We just sit there for a moment in silence, and then he wraps an arm around my waist.

"Do you think I did the right thing?" he asks. I don't want to answer. If I lie, it'll kill me. If I'm honest, it'll kill him. I lose either way. "Only you can decide that for yourself. You can't always look for others for answers, you know. Maybe you needed to do this." I say.

He squeezes my hip and Rick walks over. I decide to make myself scarce and get up to leave, walking over to the car and pretending to shuffle through my bag while I listen to them talk. Sure, I'm invading their privacy, but Carl will probably tell me about it later, anyway. I'm just curious.

Rick leans down in front of him. "You and her... you guys a couple?" I hear Rick say. I'm pretty sure that Carl shook his head no and I felt my heart sink a little bit, even though I know very well that we really aren't.

He only asked to make the conversation a little lighter. He pauses "Hershel told me about the boy you shot."

"He had a gun," replies Carl. He really thinks what he did was right. Which just scares me, considering the things that he's seen. That now everybody is just a threat. An enemy. He really can't _trust_ people.

Rick nods. "Did he hand it over?" Rick asks. _Yes, _I think. "He had just attacked us," says Carl.

"Yeah... I guess he had... But was he handing it over?" Rick asks again.

Carl breathes in deep. "I couldn't take the chance. I didn't kill the walker that killed Dale. Look what happened."

"That is _not_ the same!" whisper/shouts Rick.

"You didn't kill Andrew. And he came back and killed mom. You were in a room with the Governor, and you let him go! And then he killed Merle. I _did _what I _had _to do." This is changing my mind a little bit. Everything that he's saying is true. But all of those people _were actually_ threats. This boy wasn't.

"Now, go. So he doesn't kill anymore of us," Carl says, walking away and straight past me. Rick stands up slowly and sees me standing there. He looks at me, as if asking for some kind of help. I just shrug at me. "You should go after him," he tells me. I nod slowly and turn around, taking off in Carl's direction.

When Rick Daryl and Michonne came back, they came back with a bus filled with people.

They pulled in, and all of us just stood in shock. Rick walked over to me and Carl. Carl, who was holding my hand, let go and stood off to talk with Rick. "What is this?" asks Carl. I cross my arms, just looking between Carl and Rick and the group of people being hustled off of the bus.

"They're gonna join us." You've gotta be kidding me.

Carl looks at the giant group of people and shakes his head, walking over to me and grabbing my arm as he storms off with me following so closely behind.


	13. Thanks, Kid

zombie_apocalypse_ready_11/set?id=112707779

It's been about six months since everybody joined the prison.

I wasn't too thrilled about it, and had to move into a bunk with Beth to save space. We needed all that we could, considering the amount of people that waltzed in. We settled in pretty nicely, though. I've gotten really used to life here, and it has become home for me. Beth is like my sister, and so is Maggie.

Daryl's become like a father figure to me. I look up to him so much, and he's taught me how to use his crossbow. Whenever he goes on runs, I have the right spot next to him and neither of us ever leaves the other's side. Maggie has become like my mother, too. Just because she cares so much, you know? She will just listen to me go on and on about whatever, and she always gives the best advice.

Carl. Me and him have grown unbelievably close, and puberty has done well for that kid. His hair has grown out a little and he's about three inches or so taller than me. His eyes are just as blue as ever, and he's lost some of his baby face. He looks good. We spend basically every waking second together, and Beth is always making fun of me for it. I just joke along with her, even though I'm completely embarrassed because she knows how I feel about him.

She always tells me that the two of us are made to be together. It was a stroke of fate that I ended up here at the prison. She tells me that he likes me, but neither of us really know.

We hold hands and have some really great, deep conversations. He trusts me with basically everything, and always has some kind of way to touch me, whether it's just holding hands or snaking his arm around my waist or shoulders. He kisses me sometimes, too. Only on the cheek or forehead, but still. I don't know.

Last night I spent the whole night in his room, him trying to explain his comic books to me. We kept trying to be as quiet as possible, but Beth came over like six times to tell us to shut up. Thank god it was only her and not Rick or Daryl.

Daryl is pretty protective of me, and if he would see the two of us so comfy and cozy like we were, he would beat the kid up, no question about it. He's always telling me to watch myself around him, and I just smile and nod and laugh, though I know he's completely serious.

Rick wanted to see Carl this morning, and he convinced me to come along with him, so I did. We walked out together, holding hands and swinging ourselves along. When we finally get to the herb and vegetable section of the prison's grounds, Rick is waiting.

"You didn't wake me up," says Carl, both of us approaching Rick.

"Cause I knew you were up all night reading comics with Emma." says Rick.

"And that would be my cue to leave," I say, squeezing Carl's hand and walking back to the prison.

"What's up with the two of you?" I hear Rick say. I start walking slower so I can still hear them.

"Nothing." says Carl. "You know, that's what you tell me every time I ask you that." Rick replies. So they've had this conversation before.

"That's because it really is nothing." says Carl. I'm getting farther away and it's getting harder to hear, so I duck behind one of the sheds with gardening supplies in it.

"The two of you are always together. Holding hands, things like that. Just tell me Carl." says Rick. There's a long pause. "Yeah, I guess, maybe, there's..._ something._" says Carl. _Something. _

"You know, I don't think we ever had the talk." says Rick's voice. "Oh, God, dad! I already know everything. It's fine, really. Nothing is going to happen." says Carl. Huh.

"Yeah, well, I feel like it might," says Rick.

"Really, dad. It's fine... me and Emma haven't even kissed yet." I feel my stomach drop.

"Really?" Rick sounds way too surprised. Do we really act like that much of a couple? "Look, I'm not gonna be your best friend on the matter, but I'm still your dad. If you have any kind of questions or advice, you can still come to me. Or Daryl, even." Carl chuckles. "What's so funny?"

"Daryl would kick my ass if I talked to him about this."

"Oh, well, you can still ask me then." There's a long pause.

"Is this why you wanted me to come out here?" asks Carl.

"No... Just part of the reason."

"What's up with Violet?" asks Carl, referring to the pig lying in a giant puddle of mud.

"Carl, I told ya not to name 'em. They're not piglets anymore. They're food."

"Yeah, I know. I just thought, until..." she cuts himself off.

"I don't know what's up with her." says Rick. "She could be infected, it could be nothing." He clicks his tongue to try and get the pigs attention, but by the sounds of it, she doesn't budge.

"Feel better, Violet." the two of them chuckle a little. "Come on, let's get to it." says Rick, and they go off, doing whatever it was Rick wanted him for. I stand up from behind the shed I was sitting against and take off, going to go get some breakfast with the others.

I was sitting and eating my breakfast with Beth when Daryl walks up to me. "You guys ready to go?" I ask, referring to the run. He just looks down at his feet. "What?" I ask.

"I don't want you to come on the run today." he says. I stand up and cross my arms in front of me. "What? Why?" I ask.

"Well, it's dangerous." he simply states.

"Yeah, as if it's never been dangerous before? I can handle myself, Daryl," I say, feeling very defensive.

"Believe me, I'm not arguing with you there. I taught you myself, for god's sake. I just... have a bad feeling about this. I don't want you to go." I just stand there for a moment, looking at him. He seems pretty sincere. I slowly nod my head. "Fine... I won't go." I say, totally not agreeing with the idea. He snakes an arm around me in a hug and kisses the top of my head. "Thanks, kid. I'll see you when I get back." I wave as he walks away, and turn to sit back down. Beth is staring at me, her mouth open. "What?" I ask.

"Well, I've just never seen Daryl touch anybody in my whole life except maybe Carol, let alone kiss them." she says, surprise in her voice.

"I don't get what you're trying to say."

"Well, he just like, hugged you and kissed you. don't you think that's weird?"

I think. It isn't like it's the first time he's hugged me. "I don't know. I guess that he just looks at me like a daughter or something," I say honestly. She awe's and I chuckle. "That's so sweet!" she says. I laugh and continue eating my breakfast.

Carl and I were walking around the perimeter of the prison for about a half an hour, just talking about whatever, holding hands. "Did I ever tell you that I really like the fact that you wear dresses?" he asks. I smile.

"You might have said it a few times." He stops us and faces me. "Well, I do." he says. He pulls me into him with his arms, and I wrap my arms around his neck instinctively. He rests his forehead against mine. "I like you," he says. I smile ridiculously, blushing. "I like you, too," I say back, feeling him smile though my eyes are closed. We hear a whistle and Rick yell, "Let's go!" We immediately break apart, running to the gate to pull the rope and open it, letting in Michonne and her horse, closing the gate behind her.

"I'm glad to see you," says Rick, Michonne jumping off of her horse. "I'm glad to see you, too." says Rick.

"Somebody hit the jackpot," she says, handing over a large pack of concealed comic books to Carl. "No way, awesome! Thank you!" he says. I smile at his enthusiasm. Me and Carl walk over to the side, tying up the horse lightly on a fence. "Maybe you and I should try reading these tonight." he says, smiling at me.

"I barely understood them the last time we did that." I say, smiling back at him.

"Yeah, plus you ruin them for me by trying to put logic in them," he says. I chuckle.

"Then why exactly would you want me to read them with you anyway?" I ask, wondering if he'll pick up to what I'm hinting.

"I like spending time with you," he says, smiling at me. I giggle a little bit, and we turn ourselves back to Michonne and the others. Daryl and them are about to take off. "Hey! Y'all come back now, you hear?" I yell, directing it towards Daryl, who turns around and smiles before turning back and driving off outside of the protection of the prison gates. Maybe Daryl was right. I have a bad feeling about this, too.


	14. Story Time

Carl and I were standing near the horse's pen and talking when Rick walked up to us. I stood and petted one of the horses when Rick talked to Carl.

"You going to check the snares?" Carl asks.

"I am, you're not. Do chores, read some comics, maybe even books. Hang out with Emma and Patrick. Maybe even go to story time." says Rick.

"That's for kids." Carl retorts. "Yeah," Rick simply says. Usually during story time, Carl and me will go around a roam to the parts of the prison we aren't allowed. We never get hurt, so it's become a tradition, now. Lizzy asked me to come with her to the next one, so I promised I would. She wanted to show me that it 'isn't just little kid stuff,' whatever that means.

Rick walked off to go talk with Hershel, and I kiss Carl on the cheek before saying goodbye to him to go and find Lizzy.

Lizzy, Patrick, me and some of the other kids are all sitting around Carol in the library, listening to her read from a book. If I would have known that there was a library in this place, I would have spent all my hours in here. Now that I know it exists, I'm in here whenever I'm not with Carl. I love books, and I've always loved libraries. They make the world disappear so that you can live in a new one.

My arm is around Lizzy and her head is on my shoulder as we listen to Carol go on.

She pauses and shuts the book, Lizzy sitting up and bouncing up and down a little._ What?_

Carol reaches behind her and pulls out a big black suitcase, and opens it to reveal knives. A lot of knives. What the hell does she think she's doing?

"Today, we're going to be learning how to hold a knife." she says. I straighten my back, feeling like this isn't right, like I should leave. "How to use them. How to be safe with them, and how they can save your life." says Carol.

"Ma'am, may I be dismissed?" asks Patrick. "What is it?" asks Carol.

"I'm not feeling very well." he says back.

"Sometimes you're gonna have to fight through it. What if you're out there? Alone? You just give up because you're feeling bad?"

"No... It's just... I don't wanna yack on somebody." he says. Well that's a pleasant thought.

"Go." I wave goodbye to Patrick as I wait for Carol to keep going, Lizzie grabbing my hand.

"Today, we're gonna learn how to hold a knife. How to stab and slash-" Carol cuts herself off, looking over to the side. I see Carl. Oh, man. "Please don't tell your father." she says. Carl takes off out of the library, and Carol just looks at me. I sigh, standing up and running after him.

I'm catching up with him down the dark hallway. "Carl! Hey, Carl, wait up!" He turns around at me and shoves his hands through his hair in frustration. "What the hell does she think she's doing?" he yells at me.

"Hey, calm down. She's just doing what she thinks is right." I say, trying to calm him down.

"It doesn't _matter _what she thinks is right! Just because she thinks it doesn't mean it's automatically true!" he yells at me.

"What exactly are you so upset about?" I say, placing my hands on his arms.

"I just... I don't even know. I just don't think she should be teaching them how to do things like that without, like, my dad's consent. Who does she think she is? She isn't their mother's. She doesn't get to decide whether or not they learn how to use knives and guns and things. God! Some of them are like, five! They can't learn how to do something as important as that so young! They'll hurt themselves!" he yells. He just breathes for a moment, placing his hands on my hips.

"It's gonna be alright. At least Carol knows what she's doing if she's teaching them that stuff. I can't say I agree with it, but I can very well say that she's teaching them good skills." He just looks at me and nods, kissing my forehead. "I'm gonna go... think for a while," he says, squeezing my hips and letting go, walking down the hallway by himself, leaving me standing by myself.


	15. You Have No Idea

zombie_apocalypse_ready/set?id=112649251

Me and Beth's room is pretty cool. We have a cork board with a ton of pictures and notes that we've written to each other just hanging up on it. That's one of the reason's that Carl isn't really allowed in our room, and whenever I want to hang out with him we always go to his room or other places. Some of those notes on that board have to do with me and him, so I'd prefer if he didn't go poking around it.

She's on the bottom bunk and I'm on top, and we've found some really great comforters and colorful pillows on runs that we brought back to decorate. It's nice having a space that just screams me, you know? We've come a long way to make this place home. And we really have.

The last night was really hard for Beth. She just seemed so out of it. Her boyfriend got attacked and died on the run. That was exactly what Daryl was trying to protect me from.

I kept telling her it was okay to cry, but she just wouldn't. She kept telling me that she doesn't anymore. That she wasn't going to make herself depressed in a world like this, because she knows very well what it was like, and that if she got into that kind of way of living again that she would never get out of it.

We had stayed up half the night just talking, and by the time she had fallen asleep I couldn't, so I went into Carl's room. I felt bad for waking him up, but he was more than willing to just sit around trying to explain his new comics to me. I guess that we had fallen asleep, because I woke up to the sound of ringing, which would be Rick's alarm. He pushed open the curtain the covers Carl's room and I pretended to be asleep.

"Carl," he says. Carl slightly moves, opening his eyes. "Come on," he says. He's about to leave when he sees me moving. He just looks at the two of us and shakes his head. "Damn teenagers..." he mumbles, and me and Carl just look at each other and smile.

After we had both got dressed, I decided to tag along with Carl and Rick for farming. We walking outside when we saw Michonne and her horse. "Careful out there!" Rick tells Michonne.

"I always am. Any requests? Books? Comics? Stale M&M's?"

"You're the one that likes Stale M&M's," I say.

"Then I'll definitely be looking for some," she says, chuckling. "I'll look for something you like, too."

"Why don't you wear your hat anymore?" she asks Carl. "Good question, I mumble, putting a hand on his arm. "It's not a farming hat!" he calls after her. I just giggle and wrap my hands around his arm. "See you soon?" he asks.

"Pretty soon." she says back. We keep on walking to farm.

We find our destination and Rick and I are shoveling some dirt and words and fertilizing things into a bucket that Carl's holding. We all notice the walkers pushing hard on the fence. "They only took out one cluster yesterday," says Carl. "Probably gonna need more people today. "Maybe we could help." offers Carl.

"I've got other plans," says Rick. "I'd be up for it," I say.

"Yeah," starts Carl. "If you don't want to, maybe we could." Carl says to his dad. "Could we?" he asks.

"_We_ have other plans is what I should have said." Rick says, walking away from the two of us. He just looks at me and sighs. I know how difficult it's been for him without his gun, not being trusted to help with anything anymore. I wish I could do something to help him, but I know that his dad just needs to move on from this on his own.

We follow Rick to the pig's pen and start putting the things we threw in the buckets into their feeders. I lean against the fence. "Dad," Carl says. "I'm sorry. I've been trying."

"Yeah, I know," his dad says back. "I'm proud."

Carl sighs. "Dad... When can I have my gun back?" I've been wondering the same thing, too.

His dad just looks at him and chuckles a little bit. "Worms'll give 'em extra protein," he says, ignoring his son's question. Carl's about to say something when we all hear a loud boom. I flip my head around in the direction it came. "Stay close!" says Rick, taking the lead to wherever it came from. Carl grabs my hand tightly. This can't be good.

We hear some of the girl's screaming and running out of the prison. "Go into the tower with Maggie, both of you! Don't argue!" Rick yells at us. Carl moves a block of wood onto the pig's pen to make sure they don't get out and grabs my hand again, both of us taking off running toward the guard tower.

Carl stops to let in Michonne, who jumps off of her horse and is trying to strangle some walkers. Carl drops my hand and grabs a shotgun off of the tower's wall. I hear Maggie yell for us to hold on, but Carl's up against the fence as Michonne trips, and shoots one of the walkers in the head. I can just see the adrenaline radiating off of him. Michonne kicks the other one off of her and Maggie shoots it in the head, Michonne screaming in pain.

I run over to Michonne and Maggie, both of us helping her stand as Carl takes the horse and directs it into the fence. We all stop and stare at how many walkers are making their way to the fence. They never seem to stop. And there never seemed to be this many before.

We were all helping Michonne walk back to the prison walls when we saw Rick. Carl took off to him. "Hey, you might wanna stay back! Carl!-" he's interrupted by his son running into his arms. Carl's crying. "God, I'm sorry. I didn't see her come out." he says.

"It's alright. I'm here," coos Rick.

"I had to use one of the guns by the gate," Carl says, walking away from the hug. "I swear I didn't want to." he says.

"I was comin' round the back," starts Michonne. "I fell. They came out and helped me."

"You alright?" asks Rick. She nods slightly. "What happened in there?" I ask. We see one of the girls in our group come out crying, holding what looks like a dead body in her arms. I wince.

"Patrick got sick last night. Some kind of flu, moves fast. We think he died and attacked the cell block." He looks at Carl. "I know that he was your friend, and I'm sorry. He was a good kid. We lost a lot of good people."

He points over to Maggie. "Glenn and your dad they... they were in there but they're okay. You shouldn't get too close to anybody who could have been exposed, at least for a little while." Carl comes back over to us to help Michonne and we all walk away.

All of a sudden, Daryl appears like he's looking for someone. When he spots us, he jogs over, and I release myself from under Michonne's arm, running over to him. He envelopes me in his arms and I feel like I'm going to cry. I don't, but still. He hugs me tight. "I'm glad you're okay," I tell him. He squeezes me tighter. He pulls away and looks at me.

"You have no idea."

"Do you know if Patrick was Catholic?" asks Carl to Carol.

"He said he was a practicing Atheist." she replies. I smile a little at the thought of Patrick. He was such a sweet kid. I wasn't _great_ friends with him, but I was enough.

Carl sighs and looks at the grave sign he had been making and tears one piece of wood off of the other. I put a hand on his back to comfort him. "Did you tell your dad what you saw in the library yesterday?" she asks him.

"Nope." he says, sighing again.

"I have to keep teaching those kids to survive. You know that."

"Did you tell their parents?" She shakes her head. "No."

"Are you gonna tell them?"

"If I do, maybe after this, they'll understand, but I can't take that risk."

"Then that's between you and them." he says. I keep my head down so I don't have to say anything to Carol, not really knowing where I stand on the subject.

She sits down. "You know, it's between you and me. If you tell your dad then he'll tell them." Carl finally looks at her. "And like I said, they'll either understand or they won't."

"I don't wanna lie to my dad." he says. I scratch his back lightly with my fingernails.

"I'm not asking you to lie to him. I'm asking you not to say anything." she says. He just looks down and sighs again, obviously conflicted. He just stands up and walks away, leaving me and Carol. She looks at me sadly. I shrug. "I should go after him." I say. She nods and gets up to leave, me standing as well to go after Carl.


	16. Be Safe, Okay?

zombie_apocalypse_ready/set?id=112693152

Carl talked to his dad. Told him that Carol was teaching them how to use weapons and how to kill. All about how Carol doesn't want Rick to know. Carl decided that he thinks that Carol should be allowed to talk to them about it. Rick said that he isn't going to stop her. I guess it's all for the best. I still don't think she should be doing this without the consent of the kids' parents, but she's an adult. She can do whatever the hell she wants to. Who am I to complain?

Rick gave Carl back his gun. I just walked into his cell the other day and there it was. He was holding it and just seemed so shocked. He said that he was glad to have it back, but he was afraid that it wouldn't make any difference regardless. That he thinks his dad doesn't really trust him, but just that he's afraid that something is going to happen to him, so he gave it to him just in case.

I'm totally for that. I don't want anything happening to him, and what if something like that happens again? And he doesn't have anything to protect himself with? Maybe I'm just being overprotective, but I think that I have just about every right to be.

Daryl is becoming super suspicious about me and Carl. Always watching us and giving him dirty looks. He really is just like a dad to me, and really looks out for me. I think it's cause Rick must've said something to him about it, so now he just watches us like there's no tomorrow. I'm just glad that he isn't the one to wake Carl up in the morning, considering the number of times a week I decide to sleep in there with him.

Everybody has just been grieving. I see so many people every day just crying. We lost twelve people. _Twelve people. _And in cold blood. It's ridiculous. I feel like I should be more sad than I am, but the only thing I feel is anger. I don't know why.

I've been added to the committee. Daryl and Rick said that they wanted me on, so I agreed without even thinking about it. I don't know if it's better not knowing what's going on or if it's better knowing, but now I've seen both sides so they're both pretty good. Carl was kind of surprised, and I think he was a little hurt that he hasn't been added. They all really seem to want my thoughts on the matter, though. Who am I to deny them that?

"It's spread. Anyone who survived the attack from Cell Block D. Sasha, Kayla, and now others." says Hershel. "Jesus," I mumble.

"Well what do we do?" asks Carol.

"Well," starts Hershel. "First things first: Cell Block A is isolation. We put the sick people there, find out what happened with Kari and David.

"The hell we gonna do about that?" I ask.

"Have Rick look into it," Daryl starts.

Carol elaborates. "A timeline of who's where and when. But just what are we gonna do to _stop_ this?"

"There is no _stopping_ this." says Hershel. I lean back in my chair and try to breathe the best I can, though my chest feels tight. "You get it. You have to go through it."

"So then, it just kills you." says Michonne from behind me.

"The illness doesn't. The symptoms do. We need antibiotics." says Hershel.

"We've been through every pharmacy nearby... and then some." says Daryl, crossing his arms in front of him.

"The Veterinary College at West Peach? That's one place not many people may have thought to raid for medication. The drugs for animals there are the same we need." states Hershel.

"That's fifty miles." I say. Daryl bobs his head up and down. Daryl stands up, saying how we better not waste anymore time and that he'll take a group out.

"I'm in," says Michonne, stepping forward.

"You haven't been exposed. Daryl has. You get in a car with him-"

"He's already given me fleas." I chuckle, though it almost hurts my lungs.

Hershel stands. "I can lead the way. I know where everything's kept." Daryl shakes his head.

"When we're out there, it's always the same. We always run."

Hershel nods. "I can draw you a map." He starts saying stuff about other precautions that we've gotta take, but I drown him out. My head is pounding. I look over at Glenn and he looks exactly the same as I feel, but he's sweating a little perfusely. I'm a little concerned, but I lose myself in my thoughts and try my hardest not to pay attention to the rest of their conversation.

Carl and I are being put into Quarantine. He's pissed.

That's the thing about Carl. He always wants to fight. He just wants to be able to _do something. _He hates sitting on the sidelines. Says he feels like he's not trusted. That he's being treated like a little kid. I keep trying to tell him that it's all for the best. That his dad is doing all he can do to keep him safe, but he just doesn't seem to care. He just wants to help. Which I love.

We were told to pack up because there was no way we were leaving Quarantine any time soon. Once I was done stuffing all of my things into my duffle bag, I walked over and waited for Carl to be done with his packing. He just seemed so angry.

Rick opens the curtain covering the door and looks at an angry, sighing Carl. "It's for your own good." Rick defends.

"Fine. I just don't wanna be locked away with a bunch of kids." he says, stuffing some more things into his bag.

"I need you in there, keeping an eye on Judith and everybody else. Makin' sure they're safe." Carl takes his gun and puts it into its holster on his leg. "If anybody gets sick, you let me know."

Carl takes his bag and hoists it up on his shoulder. I stand close behind him. "What if they've already turned by the time I've found them?" He asks. He's pushing his dad's limits.

"You don't fire... Unless you absolutely need to." he says back to his son. He looks up towards his dad. "But you know I might need to... right?"

Rick just looks at him and nods once, Carl walking out of the room and me following closely behind him.

Daryl asked me if I wanted to go with him and Michonne. I declined, knowing very well that if I wasn't there, Carl would shoot his brains out from being in Quarantine.

Both me and Carl settled into different bunks, but he offered me to just sleep with him. Told me that it would be easier than me having my stuff in a different room but just end up going over to his bunk anyway. I just laughed and agreed, knowing that he really did have a point. I just put my bag in his room and set out my picture frames, leaving the rest of it in my bag thinking that this Quarentine thing won't last very long anyway.

Me and Carl have been walking the halls and making sure that all of the kids were okay when we came across Hershel. He dropped my hand that he was holding and walked in front of me a little. "I'm down here away from y'all cause you kids are supposed to stay away from me," says Hershel.

"We've been roaming the halls," I say. "My dad told me to look out for everyone," says Carl.

"Well, you should keep your distance," says Hershel, holding up a hand to stop both of us from walking any closer. "You're walking towards the exit," I point out.

"I need to go out there." he replies. Carl tilts his head a little. "To the cell blocks?"

"To the woods." he says back.

"So, you're sneaking out." Carl says, nodding his head up and down.

"Don't want anybody worrying about me and I damn sure don't need anybody telling me where I can and cannot go," he says.

"We can't just let you go out into the woods by yourself," I say to him.

"Let me?" he asks.

"We can't stop you." says Carl. "But I'd have to tell my dad."

"Oh, well, go ahead then." Hershel says. "I'll be out there by the time you find me." He walks away and gets closer to the exit. "Hershel." calls Carl. He walks past the corner, but I just stay where I'm standing and sit down cross-legged on the ground, feeling a little tired.

"If you have to go.. then we have to go with you." says Carl. Like hell I'm going anywhere. I'm exhausted.

"Carl-"

"We_ have_ to."

I guess that Hershel nodded his head in agreement. "I'll be waiting out here." he says.

Carl turns back to me. "Why you sitting down?" he asks, crouching down in front of me, smiling.

I give him a lazy smile. "Just tired, I guess."

"You feeling alright?" he asks, the smile suddenly fading as quick as it came.

"Definitely." I say, trying to sound the least bit exhausted as possible, doing a pretty good job. He grabs my hands to help me stand up. "Come on, let's go." I stop him from pulling me. He turns back. "What is it?"

"Like I said, I'm tired. I think it would be best if I just stayed here. Watch over the kids while you guys are gone. Make sure they're safe." he just looks at me, a little concerned. "I'll be fine. I'm sure you're perfectly capable of taking care of you and Hershel out there." He nods slowly, running his hands up and down on my arms a couple times. "Okay," he says. He kisses my cheek lightly and I feel warm.

He lets go of my hands slowly, looking at me and holding me by my fingertips. "Be safe, okay?" I say. He nods and lets go, and I watch him as he walks out the exit, following Hershel down and out of the safety of the prison's gate's.

That's when the coughing started.


	17. Hope

zombie_apocalypse_ready_12/set?id=112707918

I was feeling kind of hot, so I went into Carl's bag and grabbed one of his really big shirts and put it on, tying a belt around it to make it look more like a dress. I pulled some shorts on underneath and braided my hair, figuring it would help me not feel so hot. I hung out with the kids for a little while, but I told them I just felt so tired, so I was gonna go take a nap, figuring they're only kids; what harm can they do?

I left my necklace on. I think I'm just going to leave it on from now. I'm scared. It's just a fact. There's no changing that. The only things that make me feel safe are Beth, Maggie, Daryl and Carl. This necklace doesn't really help that much, but I believe that my mom would want it to, so I leave it on, now.

I grab my MP3 player and put it in my pocket, figuring I'll want it later or something. It's fully charged, so I'll listen to music in case I get bored.

I know very well I'm sick. I don't want to believe it, but I am.

My cough has gotten much worse since Hershel and Carl left. No blood yet, but I'm thinking it should be soon enough.

I'm laying down on the bottom bunk when Carl moves the curtain in front of the door. "Hey," I hear him say happily. I hold up a hand so that he doesn't come any closer. "What is it?" he asks. I prop myself on my elbow, though it hurts like hell. "I'm infected." I say. His face moves from happy to concern to shock in a matter of seconds. I lay my head back down, my tiredness taking control of my body. My eyes shut and I hear Carl scream Hershel's name and his hands picking me up bridal style. I hear him saying my name and I try to say something back, but by then I'm too far gone.

I open my eyes groggily. I'm alone in a room. What I assume is the cell block for the infected.

My whole body aches. At least it isn't the sharp being-stabbed-with-needles pain that it was before. I try to sit up but fail miserabley. I'm sweating like crazy. It's just about a thousand degrees in here.

I just lay there. I feel so helpless. I could die like this. Going out, not even by my own hand or the hands of another. I'd be dying for no reason; in vein like all the others.

What would Carl do? Or Beth or Daryl?

I guess I really shouldn't be focusing on them. I should be focusing on myself. Keeping my body fighting. Keeping it alive.

I cough hard multiple times. _Now _I'm coughing up blood. God, I'm going to die here. I see Hershel walk into my cell. "Oh, good. You're awake." he says, his voice pounding in my head.

He grabs my arms and helps me to sit up. "What are you.. doing here?" I say, searching for air. "You.. could get sick."

"I am much aware of this. Here, drink something," he says, putting a plastic bottle of water to my lips. I lift my arms and hold it the best I can, though my arms are killing me and the bottle is _so heavy. _I drink a ton of the water, suddenly feeling extremely thirsty. "I'm just here to help. I'm going to let innocent people die for no reason." he states. I put down the water bottle and look at him, searching for the answer to a question I can't bother to ask.

"Carl is fine." he says. I look at him, wanting elaboration. "He just... He called for me. Came and found me with you in his arms in tears. I yelled at him. Told him he should have stayed away from you. He didn't seem to care and even put up a fight with me to follow you in here. I finally convinced him not to, but he looked upset. He'll get to see you eventually." I just nod slightly and look at me feet.

He looks in my eyes. "_You're going to be okay_." he says. I look up at him and smile sadly as he stands up. "Drink the rest of that. You need to stay hydrated." he says, exiting my cell. I drink the rest of it and lay back down, falling asleep almost immediately.

I had woken up earlier to Lizzy shaking me. She wanted me to help her read Tom Sawyer. She said there were some words she didn't know how to pronounce and things, so she asked me to read it to her. I was actually feeling a little better. Still sweating ridiculously and still kind of achey, but I can breathe okay as long as I'm not moving.

Her and I were sitting there for a while. I was just reading and she was sitting next to me on my bed.

"The brush continued to move.

'Like it? Well, I don't see why I oughtn't to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?'

That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth - stepped back to note the effect - added a touch here and there - criticized the effect again - Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said:

'Say, Tom, let _me_ whitewash a little.'"

I pause and she nudges me with her elbow. "You know, it's getting kind of late. Dark. We'll pick up on this again tomorrow." She looks at me and smiles. "Okay," she says, jumping off the bed and I hand the book to her. "I'm glad you're in here to keep me company," she says. I laugh.

"I don't really think that's why I'm in here, but sure, hon." She smiles and exits my room, soon enough to be replaced with Hershel. He stands in the doorway and sighs. "Carl came by." he says.

I sit up straighter in my bed. "And?" I ask.

"He wants to come in. See you. I keep telling him no but the kid's fighting on my last nerve so I told him that I would ask what you wanted." He looks at me. He hasn't gotten it, yet. Maybe he just won't. He was around Patrick and me and Glenn. Nothing has happened to him. However, I don't want to put his life in danger. I'm _not_ going to put his life in danger. I look up at Hershel.

"Will you help me?" I ask, holding out my arm for him to take. He helps me down the hall and turns a corner, and I see Carl standing behind a door through glass. "I've got it," I say to Hershel. He lets go of my arm and walks away, and I turn to Carl. I walk closer to the door. "Hey." I say, my eyes watering and smiling.

"Hey," he says, seeing me and putting a hand on the glass. I put my hand over his, though it sure as hell doesn't feel the same. "I look like a mess," I tell him, laughing a little.

"You look great," he says, also smiling. I lean my head up against the glass. He does the same. "I miss you," I say.

He's silent for a moment. "I don't want anything to happen to you." I remove my forehead from the glass. "Nothing is going to happen to me." He pushes his hand through his hair. "You don't know that," he says.

"Yes, I do. I'm already feeling better than I was when I passed out earlier," I say honestly.

"But that's the thing. You _passed out! _Who the hell knows what could happen to you! I just... I feel like I should be in there. With you." We're both silent for a moment, just looking at each other.

"I had to tell my dad that you got sick." he says. He looks down. "I told him that I could go in there. Help you guys. He just kept saying that he doesn't want me getting sick." He pauses. "I told him that he can't keep me from this."

"From what?" I ask.

"From the inevitable." I look at him, shocked that he would think that.

"I swear to you, I am going to be fine." I say, trying to reassure him, trying to look in his eyes though he's looking down.

He looks back up at me. "I've lost a lot of people. I'm used to people dying." he pauses again just looking at me. "I _can't. Lose you." _he says, his voice breaking. I don't know what I'm doing when I unlock the door and twist it's knob, swinging open the door and wrapping my arms around him as tight as I can.

He just wraps his arms around me and hugs me back, burying his face in the crook of my neck. I breathe him in deep, the feeling of his arms around me something that's seemed to become so familiar. I know I'm crying, but I could care less. This boy is the closest thing that I have to family. I can't lose him by losing myself.

He pulls away slightly and pushes some of the hair out of my face. He just looks at me, his bright blue eyes pulling me into a trance. I can just tell what he's going to do next, so I pull away slightly. "I don't want you to get sick," I say. He chuckles a little bit.

"I think it might be a little too late for that." he says. I pull away a little more, leaving his hands on my hips from a distance.

"I want to take all necessary precautions." I say. He nods his head slowly and wraps me in his arms once more, before letting go and letting me walk back through the door and shut it, locking it as it was before. I smile sadly at him through the glass and turn around, walking back to through the hallway. When I get to the turn I lean against the wall, breathing for a moment. Glenn is standing next to me.

"Carl?" he asks. I just nod my head and he runs a hand to messy my hair playfully. I giggle and cough, feeling weak again. I smile at him before walking back to my cell and falling back down on my bed, leaving my eyes open unable to fall back asleep.

I see Hershel walk in and he hands me a thermos lid before he's about to walk out. I sit up slowly. "Hershel?" I ask. He walks back in. "Do you really think I'll be okay?"

He looks at me and sighs, crouching down in front of me. "I have no idea." he places his hands on my knees, looking me in the eyes. "All I know is that I am going to try my hardest to keep you alive. You, Glenn, Caleb, everybody. I can't guarentee you're going to be okay. You just need to have faith." Faith. That word doesn't seem to go away no matter what.

"Faith." I repeat, looking down.

"Now you look at me," I look back up at him. "You just need to find something to believe in. I don't know if that's God or whatever you choose, but there is no way you're going to make it through this unless you find hope." He stands up. I nod to him and he exits, leaving me be. I drink some of the tea inside the thermos lid. That's when I hear a choking person. I stand up and stand in the doorway of my cell, looking at the man choking on his own blood on the floor.

He soon stops struggling and I just stare. I'm not surprised. People were bound to die eventually. I guess that I'm just glad it wasn't me.

Hershel looks around at all of us who are standing and staring. I try to go back into my cell, but I can't bring myself to. These people look depressed. Like they've finally lost all hope."Everyone," says Hershel. "Get back in your cells."

Everyone just stands and stares. "Go on, get back in your cells." he repeats.

I see Sasha come over with a rolling medical bed. "Come on. Let's get him on this," she says, her voice coarse.

Both of them struggle to lift the boy onto the bed. "Can you make it to your cell?" I hear Hershel ask her. She nods and makes her way back, and I watch Hershel roll the bed away, feeling depressed. We're in an entire cell block full of people coughing and crying their own blood. He said I have to find hope. I don't think that there's any left.


	18. Helpless

I was just sitting on my bunk and thinking. How did things get so screwed up? Everything was fine. Everybody was happy. We had our pigs and our horses and our plants and vegetables and outdoor cafeteria. We had built so many things. We made this place home. And all of a sudden they just get so screwed up? Out of nowhere? I just can't fathom it. Things just went so horribly wrong. And so fast. How did I end up in here? I'm bound to death. There's no avoiding it. Like Carl said, it's inevitable.

I hear Lizzy call for Hershel then me and Hershel again. _Oh, no._

I stand up as fast as my body will allow me to and reach my door frame and lean against it, searching for the strength to keep moving. My body just aches so badly.

I hear the sound of walkers growling. I see one tackle over Hershel. He grunts out for us to stay in our cells, but I walk out as fast as possible, working my way down the stairs to him. I see one man walk out of his cell with a gun, pointing it towards the walker, and another girl kicking it and trying to get it off of Hershel. This is real. This is actually happening People are turning into walkers under our own supervision. My heart is beating a mile a minute, which I'm sure isn't only because I'm scared, but because I'm deathly sick.

The girl manages to lift the walker off of Hershel, and I walk over to Hershel, trying to help him up the best I can. I hear a scream and whip my head around, my vision blurry. It's the man with the gun. A walker bit into his arm. _Shit. _He manages to shoot the walker the girl was holding and it falls to the ground, my heart thumping hard in my head. I feel like I'm going to pass out.

I get Hershel off of the floor and see the man with the gun being eaten by one of the walkers through the back of his neck. I cringe. It's an ugly sight, and he's just screaming in pain. I blink hard and long so I look at it less.

I see Lizzy from above me, luring a walker towards her. "Lizzy!" I yell, only half of my voice actually coming out. She looks at me but ignores me, continuing to lure the walker away. I start walking up the stairs but lean and fall, holding onto one of the steps. I feel something grab my ankle and look down. A walker is holding onto me. I scream, my voice completely audible this time. I try to kick it away, but my foot barely moves. I yank my foot away, feeling a very sharp pain in my ankle. I managed to pull out the walker's entire arm. I must have broke something.

I scream out in pain, leaning down to take the walkers hand off of me as it tries to regain it's mobility. Hershel starts running up the steps, stomping on the walker's head that tried to attack me on his way up. He runs past me and to Lizzy, who's screaming. I look up, though my vision is blurry and I'm painfully dizzy, and yell out Lizzy's name. The walker fell on top of her. I try to stand but I'm in unbelievable pain and just sit there helplessly.

Hershel pulls the walker off of her and I sigh in relief a little. I look down to see the other walker tearing apart that man, and decide to just look away. As long as I don't scream anymore, it won't notice me. I move my position a little bit when I hear something hit the outer door hard. I move my position a little, trying my hardest not to yelp in pain. I look and see what looks like a body outside of the door, hitting it with an ax.

I stand the best I can and start making my way over to the door, finding a knife on the ground and stabbing any walkers that get in my way. I'm limping and not moving very fast, and the only thing that I can hear is my heartbeat in my head and the growling of walkers around me.

I finally manage to get to the door, but by the time I open it, nobody is there. I turn back around and get tackled to the ground by a walker, screaming when my foot gets crushed in the process. I stab it in the head and it lies there dead on top of me, unmoving. I just lay there, and I can't manage to get it off of me; I'm far too weak. Tears are streaming down my face, and I'm just hoping that as long as I stay here, no other walkers will attack.

I hear another gunshot and glass shattering. I try my hardest to push the stupid walker off of me. I push it above me painfully and throw it to the side, gasping for air. I cough hard and a lot, turning over onto my stomach and lifting myself by my elbows. I'm coughing up blood and it won't stop. I hear another gunshot and the voice of Maggie yell "Daddy!" She doesn't see me.

I close my eyes and just let the blood pour out of my mouth, giving up mope. I lose the strength to hold myself up and fall back down, rolling over onto my back. I finally stop coughing and breathe in as much as possible.

I hear one last gunshot before I try to sit up and do successfully. I see Maggie as she runs up the stairs, but she doesn't see me. I crawl myself forward. There doesn't seem to be anymore walks on this floor. I keep crawling by my elbows when a walker falls down on top of my back. I scream and flip myself over again, stabbing it in the head. I lay there coughing and gasping, the dead walker laying on top of me. "Emma!" I hear a voice yell. I see a flashlight appear from the door I had opened before. "Emma!" I watch as Carl runs in and lifts the walker off from on top of me. He looks up and down my body and tears are running down my cheeks. "Are you bit, are you hurt?" he asks frantically.

"..My.. ankle." I choke out, coughing more and more blood pouring out of my mouth. He looks down and moves my ankle and I grit my teeth in pain. "You're not bit," he reassures himself. I feel his arms wrap around me, lifting my back off of the ground. I cough into his shirt and just cry, wrapping my arms weakly around him. "I thought... I was gonna die." I tell him, my voice coarse. He pulls away slightly and there are tears in his eyes.

I put a hand on his cheek and he envelopes me in his arms again, and I cry into him, his shirt wet with my blood. He shushes me lightly. "It's gonna be okay, It's gonna be okay" he coos, and I just cry, hearing the struggling and choking that was going on upstairs cease.


	19. Goodnight, Carl

It wasn't long after that Rick and Daryl and the rest of them came bursting in through the door, antibiotics in hand. Carl told Daryl that my ankle was broken or something, so he picked me up and carried me to my cell again, nobody seeming to care anymore that they were fraternizing with the sick.

He set me down and just looked so worried. He told me he'd get Hershel to come in and take a look at me. After he had left I just heard Rick yelling at Carl. All about how he needed him and he wasn't there. How he had left and didn't warn him or tell him anything. I heard Carl yelling back at him about how he had heard gunshots, and that there was no way he was just going to wait and sit and do nothing about it. They argued for a little while, but then his dad just hugged him and told him he was glad that he was safe.

Glenn got his breathing back to normal and told me that he was feeling a little better when I talked to him. It was still in the middle of the night now, and I've been alone in my room for a while after Hershel came in and set my ankle back into place. He put some gauze around it for the time being, so now it's swollen and throbbing, but I'm surviving. I can't seem to sleep. Not after everything that's happened. I''m not feeling as sickly as I was before, and can move a lot better, ignoring my ankle.

I see Hershel come in. "You drinking that tea?" he asks me. I nod and smile. "Look, about everything that happened out there. I just want you to know I'm sorry. You shouldn't have had to go through that, risking your life to save yourself, to save me... almost getting killed when you weren't even in battle or.. on a run or something." I just nod.

"It's fine, Hershel. I'm not traumatized or anything," I say, smiling. "Glenn is okay, Sasha is okay, I'm okay, Lizzy's okay... everything is... okay." He smiles at me.

"I just hate that you had to go through that. You're so young. You have your life in front of you."

"Maybe God saved me." I say. I'm not even sure when the words leave my lips. It feels right to say it. Like maybe it's true. I can't be sure, but maybe I really just... had faith and didn't know it. He just looks at me and smiles a little, though it's a sad smile. He exits my room, leaving me alone again.

I wish that my mom was here. That Delilah was here. I miss them. I miss talking to them, just being able to see them. Maybe my mom is in heaven. That's why I'm still alive. That's why I didn't get my arm eaten out by a walker. I cringe at the thought. There really is no worse way to die than by that.

I close my eyes and breathe. I hate wondering if Delilah is out there. It hurts. She could be dead, for all I know.

But... But she could be alive.

I see Carl walk into my room, interrupting my thoughts. "Hey," he says, crouching down next to my bed.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, propping myself up on my elbow. "It's the middle of the night."

"I just... wanted to make sure you were okay." He looks down at my ankle. "So what was up with that?"

"Hershel says I broke it and that there is most likely severe fracturing. This is the best that he could do for now." He just nods.

"Daryl was really upset," he says. I frown. "Why was he upset?"

"He yelled at everybody for not being careful enough. Said that there should have been more people watching over. Rick, me, Maggie. Anybody. He just... exploded." He looks at me. "That man really loves you."

I smile a little. "Yeah... Yeah, I guess he does." Family. That's all I'm thinking. It's been so long since I've really felt like I belong anywhere._ I_ _really belong here._

Carl sits on the side of my bed, pulling me up to sit next to him by my hands. My legs are behind his back and I'm facing him, his feet placed on the ground. He puts his hands on my arms. "Sing," he says.

"What?" I say, feeling a little put on the spot. "Sing something. Please?"

"What do you want me to sing?" I say, figuring if I don't I may never get the chance to.

"That song you always sing to Judith." he says. "Sunday Morning?" I ask.

"No, the other one. La Vie En Rose." he says, smiling. "Really?" I ask.

He just nods his head and smiles. "Hold me close and hold me fast, this magic spell you cast, this is la vie en rose," I sing. He wraps his arms around me, scooting closer.

"When you kiss me heaven sighs, and though I close my eyes, I see la vie en rose." I feel my face heating up as I sing. He's looking at me so intently, his face as serious as I've ever seen it. I just look anywhere but his face, and I know I'm smiling a little ridiculously.

"When you press me to your heart, I'm in a world apart, a world where roses bloom," I sing. I see him smile slightly at the words I'm singing, but I continue on even though I'm blushing as he gets even closer to me, wrapping his arms tighter around me, bring him even closer.

"And when you speak, angels sing from above," I sing, a little quieter.

I look him in the eyes. "Every day words seem to turn into love songs..." I pause. His eyes are the craziest thing to me. They're just like Delilah's. But on him, it's... it's different.

"Give your heart and soul to me," I sing quietly. He places his forehead on mine, his arms wrapped around me tight. I breathe in deep and out, my breath shaky.

"And life will always be," he places a hand on my neck. "La vie en rose," I sing softly. I feel his lips lightly on mine. My stomach drops, and I try to react the best that I can. I kiss him back lightly, and he pulls away just as quickly as he came.

We sit there for a moment, our breath mingling with each others. He leans in and kisses me again, this time not as light as the last. I pull away slightly. "I said I didn't want to get you sick." I say, my voice only partially audible. He laughs a little, pulling me in again and kissing me deeply, my heart racing a mile a minute in my head. I kiss him back, placing my hands around his neck and pulling him closer, as close as humanly possible. We just stay there, wrapped in each others, his lips hard on mine, and I can feel his heart beating hard and fast through my fingertips on his skin.

Everything just feels perfect. Like nothing is wrong anymore. There's no more walkers, there's no more sickness, there's no more pain or deaths or sadness because of loss. Everything is just okay. No, not okay. Everything is_ perfect._

Eventually we pull away, placing our foreheads on each others, both of us breathing in deep due to our lack of oxygen. I open my eyes slowly and see his still closed, though he's smiling. I move both of my hands from his neck down to his cheeks and he opens his eyes and looks at me. I smile and place my forehead on his. "Goodnight, Carl," I say, smiling to myself. I move his face in my hands and kiss him one more time, pulling away as slowly as possible, savoring the feeling of his lips on mine. "Goodnight, Emma." I feel my hands slip away from his skin and watch him look over his shoulder one last time, smiling and waving once to me, before he leaves my cell.

I lay my head back down on my pillow, feeling exhausted by the days events. It surely won't be forgotten any time soon. I close my eyes and try to sleep. I feel extremely warm, and I'm sure it's not because of the sickness.


	20. Bastard

I wake up to the feeling of a hand on my cheek. I flutter open my eyes, seeing a very familiar face. Carl. I smile at him, "Hey," I say groggily. He smiles back at me. "How ya feeling?"

"Sore as hell," I reply, referring to my ankle for the most part.

"You think you can walk?" he asks, standing beside my bed. I push myself up to sit. It was a lot easier than I expected it to be. He holds out a hand for me to grab. I take it, putting a lot of my weight on it as he comes up to my side to help me stand. "Here," he says. He hands me a really long stick that looks like it's been cut to make it a cane.

"Where'd you get this?" I ask both of us slowly moving out of my cell, him still helping me.

"Daryl gave it to me to give you," I just smile.

"Here, you can let go. I've got it." I say, and he slowly unwraps his arm from around my waist. I hobble down the stairs and he follows closely behind. I turn around and look at him. "What the hell do you think you're doing here? Does Hershel know you're in here?"

He holds up a shirt that he must've been holding the entire time. I just hadn't noticed. "I came to give you this. You know, in case you were feeling better, you should change your clothes. Clean ones, you know? So I brought you a shirt of mine to wear." I feel myself blush a little.

"I don't have any clean dresses?" I ask. He shakes his head no. "I don't think so."

I smirk at him and take it slowly. "Alright, then. Do you think you could get me a pair of jeans from Beth?" He nods and takes off, going to go find Beth.

I really don't like the fact that he's in here. He could really get sick. He's already been introduced to it, so maybe certain people just get it and others don't. I walk slowly back up the stairs, going to change my shirt. My entire body doesn't really hurt anymore. I still feel pretty warm and my breathing is going back to normal slowly. I think I'm really getting better. I'm gonna try to see if I can go outside. Get some fresh air. This place is really starting to smell like the dead. It's pretty awful, now that I can actually breathe through my nose.

Once I'm in my room, I turn my back to face the door of my cell. I unbutton the shirt I'm wearing and let it fall to the ground. I hear something my bed and turn my body only slightly, my arms covering my chest and see Carl standing in the doorway. He had thrown my jeans onto the bed. He trots into my room and comes from behind me, placing his hands on the bare skin of my hips. I feel myself shiver and turn myself slightly so that my face faces his, keeping my body turned to the side. He kisses me once lightly and then again, far deeper than before. I just stand there, my arms over my chest, completely frozen. He pulls away, and I just stare up at him. He smirks and turns around, walking back out of my room and turning behind a wall so I can't see him.

I stand there for a moment, totally starstruck. I finally snap back into reality, pulling the other shirt across my shoulders and buttoning it up, slipping off my jeans and putting on the clean pair. I get my cane off of my bed and walk out of my room, Carl sitting against the wall. I look at him and he looks up at me, standing and walking down the stairs with me behind him before he stops me. "You wanna go outside or something?" he asks.

"Well, yeah. I mean, I feel fine. My chest is a little tight and I still feel pretty warm, but I think the fresh air will do me some good. Plus, everybody except Judith and Beth have been around infected at this point."

He nods his head slightly, putting an arm across my shoulders, walking out of the infected room with me. "Hershel's not gonna be too thrilled about this."

Feeling the fresh air was amazing. I've been stuck in stuffy disgusting, blood particle filled air for who knows how long. A few days. It just feels so nice to breathe. I didn't even know what I was missing.

Carl and I walked outside slowly until we saw Rick. He smiled at me and kissed my cheek, taking off to go talk with him.

I start my way towards Daryl's car as they pull in and Hershel see's me. "What do you think you're doing?" he asks, stern.

"I thought I'd get some fresh air. I'm feeling pretty good except for my ankle, so I thought 'what harm could it do'? He looks me up and down. He must have noticed that I wasn't as pale as I had been, I'm not coughing and my voice doesn't at all sound like a sick person, so he slowly nods his head once. "How's Glenn?" Tyreese asks. Hershel slowly turns himself around to face him. "He made it through the night." he says. "He's breathin' on his own now, but Maggie and Bob are with him. He seems stable enough for me to get some air."

"Alright," mumbles Tyreese.

"He's a tough son of a bitch," says Daryl. "You're a tough son of a bitch," he says to Hershel.

"I am," says Hershel, walking away. "What about Carol?" he calls after him. Oh, no. "She up in the A Block with Lizzy?"

"No. Talk to Rick about her. She's okay, just talk to him."

Daryl looks over and see's me standing there. He smiles. "Aye there, big ass kicker! How you feeling?"

"Pretty good, actually. Thought I'd get some air." I say, smiling at him, leaning on my cane.

He looks me up and down for a second. "You wearin' Carl's shirt?" I look at him for a moment, nodding my head slightly.

He looks at me and then off to where we can see Carl and Rick. "Okay, then..." he mumbles.

"But I'm feeling great, so that is all that really matters," I say, saying it like he's a little kid, trying to convince him it's no big deal.

He messes up my hair with his hand. "Glad to hear it, kid." He kisses the top of my head and walks away, leaving me to comb through my hair with my fingers. My hair has faded. It really isn't that great of a color, a mix between burgundy and a black-grey. It's weird, but it was bound to fade out eventually. It's getting darker, though. Back to it's original dark brown.

"You headin' out?" I hear Hershel ask. I turn around and walk over to him and Michonne.

"You wanna come?" she asks.

"Hell yeah!" says Hershel. I smile, watching as they get into their car. Michonne leans over the driver's seat and looks at me. "Come on," she says, smiling and motioning her head for me to get in with them. I hop on the back and sit down, hanging onto one of the poles on the side of the jeep, seeing as it doesn't have a ceiling.

We ride off outside of the fence. I smile, taking in the feeling of the wind on my skin once more.

When we got into the forest, it was nice. We made cheap chit-chat and just felt okay. Even when we weren't talking, I just felt happy. It was nice to be outside, in the woods, hearing the cicadas, etc. I just felt happy.

While they were burning the walker's bodies, I was just sitting on the jeep's end. By the time they were done and walking back, I stood back up to the sound of Michonne's body hitting the ground. I turned to face the sound, Hershel in front of me and gun pointed at someone. A man. Who I recognized.

Hershel put the gun down slowly and I reached into my pocket, opening my pocket knife.

"You," I say. He just stares at me, gun pointed. I take a step forward. "Emma," says Hershel, putting out a hand to stop me. I take another step, pushing his arm out of the way.

"You.. _Bastard." _I say, feeling the anger boil inside of me. His gun is practically on my forehead and this point. I feel my veins pumping heat and pure anger.

"_You're the bastard that killed my mother." _

I fling my pocket knife at him, and I see it lodge itself in his arm, though his free one comes flying at my head and everything goes black.


	21. To Build a Home

I wake up in what looks like a trailer. Michonne and Hershel and sitting in front of me, tape over Michonne's mouth. I hear a noise from behind me. I turn to look. It's that bastard from before. He goes to take the tape off of Michonne's mouth and from mine, that I hadn't even noticed was there. My wrists are tied in front of me, and it feels like the rope is cutting off circulation. I breathe in deep once the tape is removed, coughing.

He gives Hershel a packet of something. "You should eat. It's gonna be a long day."

"Nobody's gonna hurt you," he says. Bullshit.

"I don't believe that," says Hershel. I stare at the man. What I wouldn't give to be able to stab this man right now. I've stabbed him twice now. Once when he shot my mother, once when I saw him again. A third wouldn't do much good for him, but it sure as hell would for me. He has a bandage wrapped around his arm. I would smirk, being proud of myself, but I'm far too pissed.

"Well, I don't care," the man says.

"Just tell us what this is. Please," says Hershel.

"It's nothing personal."

"Then what is it?"

The man doesn't answer. "Michonne, I want you to know... Penny, my daughter, she was dead. I know that now. And I don't wanna hurt you. I don't wanna hurt anyone. I just want the prison, that's all, and the two of you are gonna help me do it. There are people I need to keep alive." There was people _I_ needed to keep alive, too. _That you killed._

There's silence for a moment. "I'm gonna kill you." states Michonne.

"Right after me," I say, even my voice sounding angry, but it barely does what I'm feeling justice.

"No, you won't," says the man. Michonne starts to say something else but Hershel yells at her to stop. "You want the prison?"

"Yeah. And I'll take it from you as soon as I can." Like hell you will.

"Gov'nor-"

"Don't call me that." he says. So this is the Gov'nor. The Governor that wanted to kill Michonne. The Governor that basically traumatized Glenn and Maggie. The Governor that caused my group - my _family - _so much hell?

Hershel leans forward, putting his elbows on his knees. "Your people. Our people. We can find a way to live together. These people you need to keep alive; do you love them?"

"You're a good man Hershel. A better man than Rick."

"The things you say. The way you say them. You've changed. So has Rick," Hershel says hopefully.

"Rick and I... We'll never be able to live together. Michonne and I will never be able to live together. Me and.. and whoever this girl is will never be able to live together." I stare him down and he looks away. "Emma," says Hershel.

He starts again. "We'll find a way-"

"I've _found a way!_" he yells. "I'm trying hard," he says, much quieter. "Of all the ways that I can do this. This way, you get to live and I get to be..." he trails off. It's silent for a moment and he stands, walking to the door of the trailer we're in.

"You say you want to take this prison as peacefully as possible. But I know you mean that you would be willing to hurt people in order to get it. My daughters are in there. That's the people you'd be hurting." he pleads with him. "If you understand what it's like to have a daughter, then how can you threaten to kill someone else's?"

The Governor just stares at him. "Because they aren't mine."

"Rick, come down here! We need to talk!" I hear the Governor say. I hear Rick yelling some things back, but I can't make them out.

We were moved into a car earlier. Made our way down here. The prison. I feel my heartbeat in my fingertips. My whole body is numb. With anger, hate, heartbreak, grief. I know for a fact one of us is gonna die. Somebody in this group is bound to fall. There is no way that this insufferable man will leave us all be without a fight. _There is no way that we are leaving this prison without a fight._

"Is Hershel on that council?" asks the Governor. Hershel gets taken out of the car, and I see him get pushed to his knees in front of the Governor's tank. "What about Michonne?" Michonne gets taken out. It's complete silence other than the sounds of their footsteps on the ground. "Emma?" he says. I get pulled harshly out of the car and try to be as careful as possible because my ankle hurts like hell.

I get pushed onto the ground right next to Michonne. "You let her go!" I hear a voice yell. It's Carl, who's mouth is now being covered by Daryl's hand. They're far away. I could die just like this. My family has been so far away for so long. My mom, dad, Delilah. Now Carl and Daryl and Beth... Maybe it'd be better. Just... to stop the suffering. To stop the feeling like no matter where I am or how many times I build a home that it will ultimately fail. Get torn apart. To have my family die again and again. Maybe it'd be better to just... end.

"They on the coucil, too?"

A man with a rifle is standing right beside me. I exchange a look of fear and strength with Michonne. "I don't make the decisions anymore around here!" Rick yells.

"Well, you're makin' the decisions today." Says the Governor from behind us. "Come over here and let's... let's have that talk."

It's silent for a long time. Nobody moves. I try to find a omfortable position for my ankle, but it's impossible when I'm on my knees lilke I am.

Rick finally starts his way towards us, slowly and steadily.

"Let 'em go," Rick says as he approaches us. "Right now. I'll stay down here, talk as much as you want. But you let them go." He pauses. "You've got a tank. You don't need hostages."

"But, I do," says the Governor. So cocky, so full of himself, so sure. If I had to be sure of something, it's that this man is going to die today. I don't care what I have to do, but _I will kill him._ "This is just to show you I'm serious, not to blast a hole in our new home. You and your people. You have until sundown tonight to get out of here. Or they die." _I'm sorry, Glenn._

"It doesn't have to be this way."_ I'm sorry, Maggie._

"I've got more people, more fire power... We need this prison. There it is. It's nothing personal."_ I'm sorry, Beth._

"We've got children here. Some of them are sick. They won't survive!" He sounds so scared.

"I've got a tank! And I'm letting you walk away from here! What else is there to talk about?" He pauses. "I could shoot you all. You would shoot back, I know that. But we would win, and you'd be dead. It doesn't have to be like that, like I said: It's your choice."_ I'm sorry, Daryl._

I hear a gunshot go off and flinch, thinking it was to kill one of us. I close my eyes and breathe in deep, in and out, and my breath is incredibley shaky. I put my head down and stare at the ground. Looking at all of them standing there, so far form my reach, just hurts. The gunshots continue. He's shooting walkers from a far distance. Trying to scare us. "You guys'll only draw more of 'em over. The longer you wait, the more danger you're in. You have maybe... and hour of sunlight left? I suggest you start packing. The longer you wait, the harder it's gonna be for you to get out of here."_ I am so, so sorry, Carl._

"We can all... We can all live together." I raise my head and look at Rick. "There's enough room for all of us."

"More than enough. I don't think that my family would sleep very well knowing that you are sleeping under the same roof."

"We'd move into different celll blocks," ays Rick. "We'd never have to see each other... until we're all ready."

Hershel turns his head. "It could work. You know it could."

"It could. But it can't. Not after Woodbury." And what you did to us_. Not_ what we did to you. "Not after Andrea." You bastard.

"I'm not saying it would be easy," pleads Rick. Sure as hell it wouldn't. "It sure is gonna be a hell of a lot harder than standing here shooting at each other. But I don't think we have a choice."

"We don't. You do."

"We're not leaving. You try our forces we'll just fight back. Like you said, the gunshots will just bring more of them out here. You'll be taking down the fences. Without the fences this place is worthless!" He pauses. "Now, we can all live in the prison or none of us can!"

I hear the Governor jump off of the tank. I hear the sound of a sword sliding out of its holder. I knew we would die. One of us was bound to.

He walks over to Hershel and puts it up to his neck. Oh, God, no. I feel like I should pray, but I feel like I'm just going to end up dead anyway, so what difference will that make? There can't be a God. Not like this. His soul must have died the second someone's flesh went into someone else's mouth.

I cringe and shut my eyes tight.

"You! You in the pony tails! Is this what you want? Is this what _any of you_ want?!" Rick says, his voice cracking.

"What we want is what you got. Period. time for you to leave, asshole." says a man in the tank. Yeah, because the person trying to help us all live together in peace is the asshole.

"Look, I've fought him before! We took in his people, they became our friends, they became leaders! You can have what we have here! Now, you put down your weapons, walk through those gates, become one of us. We let go of all of it. And nobody dies. Everyone is _alive_ right now. Everyone has made it this far. We've all done the worst kinds of things just to stay alive! But we can still come back. We're not too far gone. We get to _come back_. I know... we_ all._.. could_ change_."

I look up and open my eyes. For a second I feel hope. For a second, the goodbye's I've made in my head and the hatred I feel in my bones and the fear I feel in my heart disperses itself. Maybe we could. For a second, as The Governor's sword moves away from Hershel's neck, I feel like maybe... just _maybe, _there really is hope.

And all of that hope is shattered by one word._ "Liar."_

Everything in my head is numb. I hear nothing, even though I'm much aware as to the screams going on around me. I see it, so close to me. Even closer to Michonne. Her very own sword, sliced through the neck of the man who believed. _The only man that believed._

I hear rick scream, "No!" and he shoots, lodging a bullet in the Governor's arm.

Gunshots errupt from all around me and I duck down and follow Michonne's lead as she rolls through the grass. I hear Beth and Maggie screaming "Daddy!" and feel my cheeks getting soaked.

Michonne and I duck behind a car, both of us finding our way to the back of one of them, and I try my best to ignore the pain in my ankle as we stand and hobble over. She's trying to break the rope on her wrist with the back of the car, and I stand and wait. A man with a gun comes running through, and she trips him steps on him hard, forcing him to lie still. "Kill 'em all." I hear. The tank starts moving, tearing down the fence in the process.

I see Michonne's katana lying on the ground and motion her to it, and she manages to break the rop around her wrists and the rope around mine. I nod to her and she nods back, and I take off running as fast as I can. I stop and feel in the side of my shirt under my bra. My gun. Not a lot of rounds, but enough to help me survive until I find somebody. The cars start driving in past the broken down fence, and I do my best to run even though I'm basically crippled under the circumstances. Pain is shooting up and down my leg, but I push it away.

An explosion hits the wall of the prison. Oh, God, no. Another explosion. They really are burning this place to the ground.

They're going down with it.

My running isn't doing me much good and I trip and fall into the grass, hitting my head hard on the way down. I lift my head and push myself up a little with my elbows. My vision is blurry and I feel liek I'm going to throw up. I manage to make out what looks like the Governor tackling someone. I blink a few times until my vision comes back to me, and I look around for Carl or Daryl or Beth or _somebody._

There's another hit to the prison wall and I cover my ears, my head pounding hard.

I see a body with a gun behind me and shoot it. Somebody I don't recognize.

I turn back around and see somebody running towards me. "Carl!" I yell, getting myself up to my knees, my head making everything spin. He runs up to me, crouching down beside me. "Where's Beth?" I yell over the sound of gunshots.

"I don't know!"

"What about Daryl? Maggie?" I ask.

"I dont know, I don't know," he says frantically. I pull him into my arms and he wraps his tight around me. "I'm so fucking glad that you're okay," I say into his shoulder. I pull away and kiss him once, hard and fast, before pulling away. He helps me to my feet. "Where's Judith?"

His eyes widen at the thought of his baby sister. "Let's go!" I say, taking off in a run the best that I can. He leads the way, sprinting far much faster than I am. I duck and shoot a few times, knowing very well that there's a war going on around me. I hear another explosion and glass shattering, shaking the ground beneath my feet and causing me to fall again. "Come on!" Carl yells, grabbing my arms to try and help me up, but I only get as far as my knees. "Just go! I'll find you!" I yell.

He looks at me for a moment and cups my face in his hands and kisses me desperately. He nods and lets go of me, leaving me to crawl my way over to a loose gun. I grab it off of the ground next to somebody already dead and check how much ammo it has. More than mine, so I put mine in my boot and hold this one close.

I look over to see the tank in flames and smile before the feeling fades.

I look around me and see The Governor lying on the ground, bleeding and clutching at his chest. I slowly make my way over, not as much gunshots now as there were before, knowing that basically everybody has either fled or has died. I look at his face, which is pleading with me for some kind of forgiveness, as if I'm God and could salvage his life. He looks so pitiful, yet I feel no remorse for him. Only for the fact that I hadn't killed him sooner.

I hold the gun out in front of me and aim it at his head. "I told you I would kill you. Bastard." I pull the trigger and he's dead in less than a second. I look at him dead for a moment, before turning my attention back around to Carl's direction. I take off running again, towards the ruins of what used to be the prison's walls.

I find Carl and Rick hugging, and Carl see's me from over Rick's shoulder. He pulls away from his father's hug and envelopes me in his arms tightly. "Where's Judith?" asks Rick, who's face is bruised and beaten.

Carl pulls away and looks at Rick. "I don't know."

Both me and Carl take Rick's sides and arms, helping him walk.

The entire prison is engulfed in flames and smoke. I know I'm crying. It's silent. Proud. This place was my home. Just like all of my others, it didn't give up without a fight. It wouldn't be a home if it had.

The three of us walk past the blown up tank and we all see it at the same time. Judith's travel holder. I remove myself from Rick's grasp and limp over faster than they're making their way and look inside.

Judith isn't there, but a blood stain is.

I turn around, feeling tears stream down my face, Carl removing himself from under Rick as well. He looks in it, seeing the same thing I did. I ball my hands into fists, my fingernails digging into my skin, trying to distract myself from what I just saw.

Rick just cries. Carl's face just makes me cry harder. Disappointment, saddness, grief, anger, confusion. I don't know. I can barely read his expression.

A walker shows up at our side and Carl see's it. He walks forward and shoots it, and he just keeps reloading and shooting even after there's no more bullets to shoot. "...Carl!" I yell to him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders to try and take the gun from his hands. He just cries, leaning down and almost falling onto his knees. I grip at his shirt tight, keeping him standing. I grit my teeth and cling to him, tears streaming down my face more than I can remember them having before. He drops the gun and trembles underneath me, Rick crying from behind me.

"I know," Rick says between gasps of air, his voice morphed. "We gotta go."

Carl stands a little straighter, and Rick gets his other side. The sound of him crying just makes me hurt. I grip onto the back of his shirt tight, balling the fabric into my fist. "It's over," I say through tears.

The three of us, arm in arm, walk out of the prison gates that once stood. I try to look behind me, but all I see is a grey mess because of the water in my eyes. I feel Carl's grip tighten around my hip. I try not to cry and do whatever I can not to. Every single person could be dead. Everyone that became family to me. I can't make another one. Not like this.

We make it to the forest where the trees start. "Don't look back." says Rick. I don't, and we just keep moving forward as I try my hardest to block out my thoughts.

None of us look back. If we had, we would have been dead a long time ago.


	22. Grieving

We've been walking. I don't know for how long, we've just been trying to find someplace to stop. Well, at least I am. Carl on the other hand seems like he could keep walking for hours. I'm so tired, and my foot and leg have completely gone numb. About a half an hour ago I threw up, knowing very well that I probably have a concussion. We just keep moving through, me helping Rick walk and Carl about fifteen feet in front of us.

He seems hurt. No, not _seems. _He really just is _hurt._

It kills me to see him like this. We tried so hard. We fought for this prison, more than once. All because of this stupid, idiotic, crazed man. He was too far gone. I believe what Rick said was true, but not for him. Not for the Governor. He's lost. There was no way that he could have gotten out of this alive.

I'm glad that I was the one to give the final blow.

All three of us are sweating like a faucet, Carl's hair completely soaked and mine about half way there. It's painful just standing out here at this point.

"Carl," says Rick from my right, his voice slurred and morphed. "Slow down." I cringe at his voice. It's painful just hearing it. "_Carl, stop_!"

He stops dead in his tracks, not bothering to turn around. I stop, too, letting Rick walk in front of me to Carl's side. "We need to stick together," he says, his voice swollen. "We gotta find a place, food, supplies." He's just standing at Carl's side looking at him.

"Hey, we're gonna be-" he cuts himself off. Carl finally looked at him, but it was so angry. His hate for his dad must run pretty strong now. He's grieving. He just needs to get through it. And it better be soon, because he's being a total asshole.

He starts walking again, and Rick soon after. I reach into my boot and pull out the gun I took from the random man earlier, holding it close to me, about six rounds left. I take the tail of the three of us, which means I have to walk almost unrealistically slow. I'd prefer not to be anywhere close to either of them now. I'm just a third wheel, and perfectly okay with it.

Eventually we come across a solid concrete ground and not far after, what looks like a bar. All three of us pile up at the door, all holding our guns to the door. I stand to the right of Carl, about arms distance so he doesn't take his anger out on me.

"You wait outside, okay? You two keep watch," says Rick. Yeah, like that's gonna happen.

Carl looks at him like he's crazy. "_You_ keep watch," he says. Rick returns the favor of a crazy look. "You can barely stand. I'm not gonna let you go in there alone."

"Excuse me?" asks Rick, obviously offended, though for no reason.

"We've done this before. I'm gonna cle-"

"Hey," I say sternly, making it very obvious that I don't want to hear their shit. They both turn their heads to face me, neutral looks instead of crazed ones. Carl hangs his head. "Let's go," slurs Rick.

I kick in the door myself, and all of us disperse inside in different directions, Rick closing the door slightly behind us. I go into a side closet that's been completely cleared out of food, as that's what it looks like it used to hold. "Kitchen's clear," I hear Rick say. I turn around, shutting the pantry's door from behind me and follow Carl into a separate room, Rick soon to follow, guns raised.

I see a walker from behind a counter and chairs piled on top of one another, not able to escape. "I can get it from here," says Carl, aiming at the walker with his gun. "No," says Rick. This would be a good time to still have my pocket knife, but I'm glad I used it for what I did.

"No, it's weak. I can draw it out." I look at Carl, who's putting down his gun dramatically and rolling his eyes. I wish I could go over to him and just… I don't know. Yell at him, do something that would comfort him. However, I'd much rather stay towards the back and wonder what if he would respond, then do it and get rejected like he's doing to Rick.

He hasn't looked at me since we left the prison fence. He let go of me less than halfway to wherever we are now. He's pissing me off. But part of me just understands.

I know he's being unfair to Rick. But he just needs to be. I'm sure he'll get over it soon enough.

Rick throws a chair to the side and then another, leaving the walker to try and attack. It moved forward quickly, and Rick hit it in the head with an ax, but it didn't go all the way through. Rick starts struggling again the pressure the walker is putting against him, and just as I'm lifting my gun to shoot it, Carl gets there first. The sound makes me flinch, and I look over at him with his gun raised. He doesn't look back.

Not like I really expected him to.

"I said not to!" yells Rick.

"You couldn't do it with the ax!" Carl retorts. I'm so sick of their fighting.

"I had it. Every bullet counts. We could've needed that one later. Go see what you can find… then let's move on." says Rick. Carl walks past me and goes to take his fill of chips, while I take a peek outside to make sure the gunshot didn't attract any unwanted attention.

"The kitchen wasn't empty after all," says Rick, and I shut the door and go back to bar room with Carl and Rick. He's filling a cloth bag with food, and I can just about hear the hunger in my stomach. "My haul," he says, putting his food and water into the bag. "You?"

Carl puts down his bunch of chips and pickles. "I win."

I want to giggle a little, but it hurts just standing at this point.

***

We kept walking again, farther and longer than before. Carl is still in the front, and I'm still helping a sweaty and very pathetic Rick to keep walking.

"Hey," I hear him say. He repeats it. Carl keeps walking. He says it again as we come up to what looks like a little neighborhood, the houses pretty spread out. Carl turns, making it very obvious that he's annoyed. "That one's as good as any."

We make our way up to the house and Rick breaks it open, and Rick goes his own way as I follow Carl, not very close behind. "Carl!" whisper/shouts Rick.

"I got it!" Carl yells back. I'm standing in an archway between the two of them. "All the doors down here are open," he says, walking forward a couple more steps.

"Just stop!" says Rick.

Carl puts his gun down, frustrated and turns around to face his dad.

He punches the wall hard. "_Hey asshole_!" he yells. "Carl." I say loudly, but he doesn't seem to care. He hits the wall again. "_Hey shit face!_"

"You watch your mouth!" says Rick. I'm glaring at Carl, but it's like I'm not even there.

"Are you _kidding_ me? If there was one of them down there, they would've come out."

They just stare at each other for a few moments before Carl walks off to some other portion of the house. I make my way, about to follow him, but I'm not going to feel bad about myself when he doesn't talk to me, so I go up the stairs, but take a left turn to a different bedroom than where he's going.

I slowly open the door, my gun raised, and move into it. I look around. There's no walkers. I put my gun back into my boot and have a look around. It's an old looking room, like it was designed in the 60's. There's a small bed in the corner, yellowish-white walls and nothing matches.

I look to a corner and see a record player. I hear myself gasp a little, and walk my way towards it. I look around at a messy pile of old records. I recognize a few names. Johnny Mathis, Liza Minnelli, Bobby Darin. I listened to a lot of forties and fifties music when I was a kid. My mom loved it, and my dad grew to love it, too.

I'm gonna keep this thing in mind for later. It'd be nicer to listen to some music without having my uncomfortable ear-buds shoved in my ears.

I reach down to my pocket. My MP3 is still there. When I changed back at the prison, I must've moved it from my jeans over to these ones.

Back at the prison.

I take a hand to slide across the walls. I see a dresser and open it. I pick out a few things, but there's only giant sweaters. I open the drawer underneath it. There's just socks and what looks like old lady's underwear. I close it and open another. Now, this is more my style.

It's filled with dresses. I hold a few up in the air. Some of them are huge but other look just about perfect to fit me. I put the few on the bed and sit down, bounding up and down a little on the mattress. It squeaks like nothing I've heard before, but it will be the nicest bed I've slept on in about two years.

I breathe in the air around me. This place smells like my old house.

***

The entire day, I stayed in that room. I didn't hear anything important going on outside, so I just figured that it was fine. I was really tempted to play around with the record player, but I was just exhausted so I took a nap, went looking through a toy box and looked at some paintings. There was a giant pile of canvas paintings just lying on the floor. God, what I wouldn't give to be able to paint again.

I went downstairs once I heard something moving. I stood in another archway, watching as Rick tried to push a couch into the front door. "I tied the door shut," says Carl.

"Can't take any chances," Rick retorts. I swear, if they fight I'm gonna end up shooting into the ceiling to get them to shut up.

"You don't think it'll hold?"

"Carl.."

"It's a strong knot!" Rick stops pushing the couch, Carl standing in his way. "Clove-hitch. _Shane_ taught me."

"_Carl,_" I say. He doesn't even move his gaze to glance at me.

"Remember him?" His dad looks at him.

"Yeah, I remember. I remember him every day. There somethin' else you wanna say to me?" Carl just moves and helps Rick move the couch into the door, and I stand and watch, knowing I'm basically of no use anymore. "This'll have to do for the night."

Rick holds out some chips to Carl. "You gonna have some?" Carl asks.

"You should eat," says Rick.

"We should save it."

Rick moves his gave to me and holds out the bag. I might have turned him down if it weren't for the fact that I felt like I was dying of starvation. I make my way over, sitting down with my back to the way in front of him. I take the chips and open them up, taking a few and handing them to Rick, who takes a few as well before standing and taking off.

I look at Carl, who's nothing but a silhouette in the darkness. All I can hear is my chewing, and I feel like it's really obnoxious.

I want to say something to him. All he's doing is sorting through things that I can't see and folding blankets or whatever. He doesn't look at me. He hasn't looked at me once since we left the prison. That's gotta be more than twelve hours ago at this point.

He's argued uncontrollably with his dad, and not even bothered to look my way.

By the time that Rick is back and lays down on the couch, Carl lying on something on the floor, I stand up to make my way to the bedroom. Carl sits up and finally looks at me. He opens his mouth like he's about to say something, but I cut him off. "Don't even talk to me," I say, pissed.

I may be being over dramatic, but he's not the only one grieving here, and he doesn't get to act like a total ass and get away with it.

I walk back upstairs and change into one of the dresses, laying on top of the covers and falling asleep in no time.


	23. The Way Things Used to Be

zombie_apocalypse_ready_15/set?id=112731763

I wake up to the sound of knocking on my door.

I slowly let my eyes flutter open and see Carl standing in the doorway across the room. I sit up and stretch, rubbing my eyes. "Hey," I say, not sure what else to.

"I was just coming up here to tell you that I'm gonna have breakfast," he says. He looks around the room. I smile and he smiles a little bit back before exiting the room.

I guess that really wasn't as bad as I expected it. I do that a lot; make up what I'm going to say to somebody when I have the chance to, but never actually do it.

I stand up and stretch again before lightly walking down the stairs and into the kitchen. Carl isn't there, but a bowl of cereal was poured for me. I eat in silence by myself but feel content.

"Dad?" I hear when I'm about halfway through my bowl. "Dad?" I hear again.

"Dad, wake up," says Carl's voice. I hear him yelling 'wake up!' so I run out to the living room and am about to say something when we hear pressure at the door. Carl stands and turns around and looks at me. "I got it," he says. He disappears around me and I hear him yelling from outside.

I peek through the window and he's luring the walkers away from the house. I'm about to follow him, but by the time I've made it to the porch of the house, something is motivating me not to. I sit down on the porch steps and let the sun sink into my skin.

I bet that my birthday has passed already. I bet Carl's has, too.

I'm pretty sure that his is sometime in June, and mine is May 21st.

So, I'm fifteen, then. It doesn't feel much different. I know that back at the prison, Beth kept track of the days on some calendar she had just written birthday's and anniversaries on and used every year, never crossing out any days or anything. I never told her my birthday, so I never got informed if it had been.

Delilah always went all out for my birthday's. At the end of every night she would sit on my bed with me, after planning some kind of huge blow out that all of my closest friends and family were invited to, and tell me all about the day that I was born. How my mom was screaming and cursing, throwing ice chips at all of the doctors and nurses. I would laugh and then she would go on to tell me a quote from our favorite show that my mom tells both of us on our birthday's when she gives us her present separately.

Her exact words were, "Now, while some people might tell you that childbirth was the most meaningful experience of their life, I compare it more to doing the splits on a case of dynamite."

We would laugh every time.

And then Delilah would go on to tell me every important thing that happened this last year, whether it be politics or our favorite band released a new album, or I was the lead in a play, or mom finally got around to writing that song she had been working on… everything. And she would always finish it by telling me how lucky she was to have me. How she can't imagine being an only child, let alone not having me in her life. She would apologize for anything stupid that we fought about over the year, and I would forgive her and she would go on telling me how much she loves me. How much she would give just to keep me safe. How much it saddens her to see me grow up, but how proud she was of me.

This won't be the first year she hasn't done that, but it'll be the first year I stopped believing she was alive.

I'd like to believe she's still out there, but at this point, I just don't. I don't think I ever really did. I just wanted to keep my hopes as high as possible, because I was without any family.

I've found family now.

I hear gunshots. I immediately rush to my feet and take off running to the sound of them. There's two more. I'm running fast, knowing that it isn't good for my ankle, but it doesn't hurt that bad anymore. It just throbs.

I hear three more gunshots that are much closer. I keep running until I see Carl lying on the ground in front of a pile of zombies. I run over, falling to the ground next to him, wrapping my arms around him and hugging tightly. He hugs back lightly. "God, what the hell, are you okay?" I say, pulling away, looking him up and down for scratches. He pulls out of my arms and stands.

He throws up and I cringe a little, standing and grabbing his hat off the ground. He nods his head, grabbing the hat I was holding out for him. "That didn't really seem like okay," I say. He puts the hat back on his head, wiping the side of his mouth with his sleeve. "I won," he tells me. I smile a little and he barely does back, nodding his head for me to follow him. I do, staying close behind but not on his tail or to his side, just making sure he's safe.

We find our way back to the house in no time, walking in from the side door. He walks over to Rick on the couch and I lean against the archway behind it.

Carl looks at Rick. "I killed three walkers. The ones that were outside of the house. They were at the door, they were gonna get in but I lured them away. I killed them." He sighs at an unmoving Rick.

"I saved you... I _saved_ you! I didn't forget while you had us playing farmer. I still know how to survive. Lucky for us." He pauses. "I don't need you anymore," he says. I stop learning and stand up right, burning a hole in the back of his head. "I don't need you to protect me anymore, I can take care of myself. You could protect me anyway! You could protect Judith! You couldn't protect…" he pauses again. "Hershel. Or Glenn. Or Maggie. Michonne, Daryl. Or _mom. _You just wanted to plant vegetables. You just wanted to hide! He knew where we were and you _didn't care! _You just _hid_ behind those fences and _waited_ for…" I want to say something. I want to comfort him or something, but I know I can't. He just needs to yell. I don't think Rick is dead. Probably just a concussion. But he still needs to yell, or nothing is going to get any better with him.

I've never heard him yell like this before.

"They're all gone now. _Because of you! They counted on you! You were their leader!"_

He stops and sits down on the floor, sniffling. I walk over slowly and crouch down, putting a hand on his shoulder. "And now… You're _nothing."_

He puts his head in his arms for a minute a sniffles again before wiping his eyes, sighing, and standing up, leaving me on the floor. He empties out the cloth bag and stops himself before walking out. "I would be fine if you died."

I stand up after he leaves, leaving me and Rick alone in silence in the room. I know that he was talking to his dad, but it still hurt to hear him say it.

After a while I got tired of sitting around and doing nothing, so I decided to scope out the area a little bit. I came across one house with nothing in it, but it looked a little bit nicer than the one we were in. All of the food was gone, unless it was strategically hidden throughout the house, and there was no ammo or guns anywhere, not that I was really expecting there to be.

I grabbed a big kitchen knife and put it in my other boot. It had a leather holder and everything, so I didn't have to worry about stabbing myself with it.

I had started walking again a little while ago, and came across another house, the door wide open. I heard noises from upstairs. I took a look in the kitchen, where there were some jars of peaches and things that I figure I'll get the bag and come back to later.

There were gunshots. After a third one fired and I heard the walker clearly, I slowly walked to the staircase.

That's when I heard a voice struggling. Carl's. I run upstairs to him leaning hard against the door and breathing deep. He sees me and smiles a little bit, walking over and wrapping me in his arms. I hug him back, and I know I look completely shocked.

I take in a deep breath before pulling away, putting my hands firmly on his arms. "You _need_ to talk to me," I say. He doesn't say anything, but looks a little like he was expecting this. "Talk to me, yell at me, _scream _at me! I don't care! Just_ say something_. I get that you're going through a hard time, and I get that you're grieving, and I get that you're pissed at your dad because you think that this is his fault, but you can't just shut me out!" I breathe in deep, feeling like I'm on the verge of tears. "You're the _only thing I have left. _You can't just put me in the dark."

I know that there's so much more that I wanted to say to him, but his words make my train of thought disappear. "You sound just like my mom."

I look at him and wipe my eyes a little bit. "What?" I ask, it coming out as more of a whisper.

"My mom told me once that whenever her and my dad were in an argument, that he would just stay really calm. He'd never argue with her. She told me that she just wanted him to argue with her, scream at her, whatever. It was better than… being put in the dark," he says, looking kind of upset that I would even say that, it just now dawning on him that he's been completely oblivious to my existence the past day and a half.

I smile a little bit, sniffling. "Well, I guess that's good," not sure what to say back.

He said I was like his mom.

I motion with my head for him follow me, but he grabs my hand and stops me. "I have a better idea," he says, smiling.

He runs downstairs and soon returns with a giant can of pudding and two spoons, giving me the spoons and leading me through a bedroom and opening a window, walking out onto the roof. I look at him like he's crazy but follow him anyway.

We sit there, on the roof, filling our mouths with chocolate pudding. I can't remember the last time I had chocolate. It's just amazing to have it again.

I break the silence. "You know, when I was on my knees in front of the Governor's tank, I literally thought that I was going to die." I stare at the spoon in my hands and my feet dangling off the roof. Carl looks at me, putting the can of pudding down, but I keep staring down.

"I was literally saying goodbye's in my head. Saying how much I was sorry. To everyone. To Glenn, Maggie, Beth, Daryl. Even you. I don't know what I was sorry for. I think I was sorry that I was up there. I felt like… like it was my fault." I pause. "That Governor is the man that killed my mom. I didn't kill him. I tried, but I couldn't do it. If I had killed him, none of this would have happened. We would still be at the prison, Merle would be alive. Hershel, Judith…" I trail off, choking on my tears. I feel his arm around me and see his head down out of my peripheral vision. "We would still be at the prison," I say, my voice shaky. "We would be safe and at home." He looks up at me again.

When the word comes out of my mouth it feel strange. It was home. But home is such a strong word for me, and when I said it in my head it was fine. But now… now that it's gone. It just… isn't home anymore. It's just a pile of rubble.

"We lost everything," I cry. I didn't even know that I was so upset. It didn't feel like I was. "And regardless of the fact that you're going to tell me it isn't my fault I'm still going to feel like it is. Lizzy is gone, Daryl is gone, _Beth_ is _gone_!" I pause, breathing in. "I don't even feel like I'm here anymore. I sure as hell am not the person that I was before I met you guys. But now… I don't even know if I'm better off this way. Maybe I should have been alone." I can just feel the concern that he's looking at me with.

"I told myself at the start of this that I couldn't get attached. That I know for a fact that every single time that I let myself open up and let people in and make a home and make a family that it gets _destroyed_." The words sound harsh coming out of my mouth.

"I'm your family," he says. I finally look up at him, and his eyes are glassy. He pushes me in and leans his forehead against mine. "And don't you _dare_ say that this is your fault." He sounds almost angry.

"Then quit saying that it's your dad's." He leans back and wipes the tears from my cheeks. I smile at him the best that I can. "I know that you're a loose cannon and everything, but you have to cut the guy some slack. He's hurting just as much as you are." He smiles when I call him a loose cannon. He leans forward and kisses me, pulling away slowly. "You're my family," I repeat.

This time it doesn't sound weird. It sounds right.

After that, we ate the rest of the pudding and just talked. Things about his house and mine. We just talked about our rooms and the things that we miss that we used to hate. We talked about the little special things that our parent's used to do for us and our birthday parties and our old friends and enemies and just… everything.

After a while it had gotten dark, so we walked hand in hand back home.

It feels good to have him back.

By the time we got back to the house, it was pitch black, and both of us were exhausted. We came in through the side door and we went to the couch to see if Rick was awake. He wasn't. So, we decided to just relax, maybe try to sleep. He just sat in front of the couch and gave me a pillow, so I put the pillow on his lap and laid down and closed my eyes after he kissed me goodnight.

I was almost asleep when I felt Carl shift under me.

I open my eyes slowly, and see him looking at Rick. I push myself up to a sitting position. Rick's hand moves and he wheezes. _No._

Carl just stares at him, his expression unreadable. I shut my eyes tight, not wanting this to be happening. I open them and Carl is rushing towards the opposite end of where the couch is facing against the wall and I back up, still on the floor. Rick is basically growling now. Carl holds up his gun towards him, shaking.

Rick rolls over and falls onto the floor, making me flinch. He sounds like he's gasping for air, slowly crawling over to where I am next to Carl. Carl drops the gun, turning his face away, tears spilling over his eyes. "I can't," he chokes out. He sounds like a little kid. "I can't," he repeats.

"Just do it," he says, and I'm not sure if he's referring to me to shoot walker Rick or for Rick to attack. I blink hard before reaching over to the gun on the floor, picking it up, my hands shaking. I hadn't even noticed I was crying, as well.

"Don't go outside," I hear. I wipe my eyes and focus my attention on what's in front of me. That voice came from Rick. He's not dead. _He's not dead._

"Stay safe," he says. I drop the gun with a loud clank and bury my face in my hands, shaking. I wipe my eyes, looking over at Carl, who's putting his father's head in his lap. Rick breathes hard. I watch Carl put his forehead on his father's. He cries.

"I'm scared," he whispers. I crawl over and wrap an arm around him, burying my face in his shoulder. "I'm scared," he repeats.

We stay that way for a long time.

We all ended up falling asleep sometime last night. Carl woke up first and woke us all up, giving each a bowl of cereal, and we all three ate in a peaceful silence.

Carl got up to clean himself up a little bit a few minutes ago. I helped Rick sit up on the floor in front of the couch, and I took a seat on it, criss-crossing my legs in front of me.

I see Rick turn his head halfway like he wants to say something. I stare down at my hands and pretend that I can't see him.

"Carl… He's in love with you."

I look up, my heart skipping a beat. I don't think I can ignore that.

"What?" I ask.

He chuckles a little, turning back to face his head forward. "You know, back at the prison, I could barely get through one conversation with him where he didn't bring you up. At the time I didn't really think much of it… just thought it was a crush." He pauses. "But… he really does love you."

I breathe in as deep as I can, seeing as I was holding my breath the entire time he spoke. I find myself smiling. I almost feel like crying or something, but I don't. I just smile at my hands. "You love him, too," says Rick. I look back up.

I hadn't even thought about it. I always thought the word "love" was overrated. Too many people say it and don't mean it. I just believed that when I loved someone or fell in love, I would just know. Not that it would be some kind of life-altering revelation, but that I wouldn't have to say it or even think about it to know that it was true.

Maybe, now that I do think about it…

I open my mouth, about to say something back to him when Carl walks in, jumbling the words to get stuck in my throat.

I see him smile at me, before taking the seat on the floor in front of me. Rick turns his head to Carl.

"You shouldn't have risked it. Going out there like that. It's dangerous," says Rick. He isn't yelling, though. He's extremely calm.

"I was careful," says Carl. "Emma came and helped both times." I put my fingers in his hair in front of me, listening to their conversation but not really paying attention to it.

"Well, it's good that you two found more food," says Rick.

"We found even more but… we ate it." I smile.

"What was it?"

"112 ounces of pudding," says Carl, looking behind him at me and smiling before turning back. We did eat all of it. And it was damn good.

The two of them chuckle a little. "I know that we'll never get things back to the way they used to be," says Rick. I look up from my hands and look at Rick.

"What?" asks Carl.

"I only clung to that for you… for Judith." He pauses. "And now she's gone." He looks at Carl. "And you… You're a man, Carl. You're a man. And I'm sorry."

Carl looks his dad in the eyes. "You don't need to be." I smile.

"Emma!" I hear from outside. Rick and Carl each look up at me. Carl stands, grabbing his gun off the ground and letting it hang loosely in his hands. "Emma!" I hear it yell again. There's a knock at the door. That voice. It was more familiar this time. I stand up, not sure where to go. All I know is that I knew that voice.

Delilah.


	24. You're Actually Here

I stand there, not sure what to do. Rick turns around and stands, looking through the peephole of the front door and smiles a little when he turns around. I wait for some kind of conformation, but all he does is nod his head to the side door for me to go out. I walk to the side door of the house and walk outside, the amount of darkness out here exactly the same as inside the house. "Delilah?" I question into the dark.

I hear footsteps. Then I see her. Standing about ten feet in front of me. I ball my hands into fists and feel tears down my cheeks. "Is it really you?" I ask, my voice coming out in a whisper. I see her silhouette nod her head. "Hey, Em," she says, sounding coarse.

I feel my feet take off running and wrap my arms around her the second that I reach her. I sob into her shoulder as one of her arms wrap around my back, the other clutching at my hair. "I thought you were dead," she says through her tears.

I smile wide, not pulling away but only holding onto her tighter. "I thought you were dead, too," I tell her. I feel her pull away a little, tucking my hair behind my ears. "God, you've grown up," she says, smiling. I laugh a little, though it gets lost in my tears.

"Yeah, I guess I have." She looks just about the same. Her face is dirty and her hair braided around her head, a style our aunt taught her. Always said that it framed her face very well. Her fingertips reach my face and wipe my tears. "Where's mom? Dad?" she asks hopefully. I just pull away slightly and look at the ground, shaking my head the best that I can. She just wraps me tightly in her arms again, silently crying like she was before. "I'm so glad that you're okay," she says, and I just cry. She's alive. My hope wasn't for nothing, after all.

I feel her move away from me again, keeping one arm on me. "Who are these guys?" she says, pointing behind me, and I turn around to see Carl and Rick standing in the side doorway. I smile. "This is Rick," I say, pointing to him, "and this is Carl."

She lets go of me to walk towards them. "Delilah," she says, smiling, holding out a hand for them to shake. Rick takes her hand first, Carl's face lighting up. I furrow my eyebrows and look behind me. Michonne is here, standing not too far back.

"Bet you thought you'd never see me again," she says, not really sure who she's telling it to. I feel wind as Carl runs past me, running up and hugging her. She looks surprised at first, but hugs back after a moment. "Sure got that right," I say. Delilah meets my side again, pulling me into a side hug with her arm, and I wrap mine around her as well. It almost doesn't feel real. Her arm is around me, the same way it always used to be. "God, you're so freaking old," she whispers in my ear, and I watch as Carl pulls away from Michonne and Rick hobbles past us to go and talk with her.

The three of them talk and smile, and I keep my focus on Delilah. "I'm only fifteen," I say, recognizing my age as a year older. She looks down at me. "That's _old_!"

I look up at her and see tears running down her face again. I wrap my arms around her neck once more. I feel like I'm crying, but I've completely run dry.

***

"So, Delilah, why don't you tell us about yourself?" asks Rick. I'm sitting on the couch next to her, Carl passing me the bag of chips to take from.

"Yeah, how do you know Michonne?" I ask, grabbing her hand, staring at her. The fact that she's sitting next to me right now is completely unbelievable.

"Um, well, I was with some of my college buddies before all of this happened, so I stuck with them for a while. Then, there was some crazy attack so I ran off so I wouldn't get killed." She trails off a little. I squeeze her hand. "I found this place called Woodbury-"

"Wait, you were at Woodbury?" asks Carl. _What?_

"Yeah?" she questions.

"That's how the two of us knew each other," says Michonne. "When I left, she stayed with Andrea."

"I figured maybe I could talk some sense into the Governor, you know? I always see the best in people… figured I could salvage the happiness and security of some of those people."

"So… you knew Andrea, then?" asks Carl.

She nods her head slowly. "Yeah… The two of us… Those people looked up to us. Saw us as leaders when the Governor went crazy." She pauses, looking up at Michonne. "I tried so hard to protect her."

"I know… You were lucky you got out alive," says Michonne, sitting down next to her on the arm of the couch. "I'm glad you're here," she says, smiling slightly.

"Me, too," she says, nodding. I squeeze her hand again.

It's silent for a moment. "We all better get some rest," says Rick. "Mornin's coming soon."

Rick goes off to wherever, and Michonne follows him. I stand after Carl and nod for Delilah to follow. "I wanna check this place out a little," she says. I smile. "I'll be upstairs," I say. She nods.

I follow Carl into the kitchen, leaning against the counter as he puts the chips in a cabinet. "She's alive," I say.

He turns to face me. "I told you that she was," he says, smiling. I walk over and punch him a little in the arm. He pretends to act hurt, rubbing the place I hit with his hand. "You had no idea. Just a lucky guess," I say, chuckling.

"Yeah, but I have magical powers, I guess. So, now, everything that I say will come true." He wraps his arms around my waist. "Oh, really?" I ask, feeling warm. He's about to say something when I see Delilah walk in out of my peripheral vision, and he quickly unwraps himself from me, looking at the ground.

I do my best to smile at Delilah, but she just waves her finger between the two of us. "You two sexually active or something?" she asks, completely nonchalant. I give her a glare, feeling my face get red. She puts her hands up defensively and walks out of the kitchen. It's quiet in the kitchen for a moment. I look over at Carl whose face is red and eyes shut tight, as if he wishes that hadn't happened. I lean over and kiss his cheek, his eyes opening to meet mine. I can feel the butterflies buzz in my stomach.

"I don't think your 'magical powers' are going to help you make it so that didn't happen," I say. He smiles a little bit at me, and I giggle at his nervousness. I walk away and up to my room, feeling his eyes watch me as I leave.

***

"When did you find these people? I mean, what kind of luck is it that we both know the same person? I mean, give me something," She says, smiling, plopping herself down with me on my bed.

"Well, after I was on my own, I just kind of… stumbled across them, I guess. I don't know. I've been with these guys for a little over a year, now."

"Not just these guys, though, right? There were others?" she asks.

"Um, yeah. We had a bigger group. There was an accident."

"Michonne filled me in little bit. It was the Governor, right?" she asks. I nod. "He just keeps coming back into the picture."

"Yeah. He went crazy… Tried to take away our prison. He's the… He's the one that killed mom," I say. She just looks at me for a moment before nodding.

"Was mom... Was she.. with you?" she asks, quietly.

"No… Not with my group here. She died before I met them." We're both silent for a moment and she just drops her head. "I killed him." She looks at me. "The Governor. I mean, Michonne stabbed him through the heart. I shot him, though." She nods. "What about dad?" She whispers.

I take in a deep breath, not really wanting to talk about this. "He died protecting mom. Way before she died," I say. The word "died" seems way too strange. That she was here one moment and just gone the next, her body still here but her soul somewhere else. I shake my head a little, trying to get the thoughts out of my mind.

"We looked for you," I say. She looks up. "Once we left home, we went everywhere trying to find you. After about a year of looking, I was the only one left that still thought that you were alive." I pause, looking at the concern on her face. "I stopped." I say. "Stopped… believing that you were… alive. I just thought that… That I was tired, you know? Of hoping that I still had family. I wanted to think that it would be better if I didn't. That way I could focus on myself and staying alive."

"I thought the exact same thing," she says, putting a hand on my arm. I'm not sure if she said it to help me feel a little bit better, but it kind of did. To know I wasn't just being selfish. I was being realistic.

"Even though," I start, "When mom died, she told me to find you. Tell you that… that she loved you. That everything would be fine even if she was gone." I smile. "That her and dad will be watching over us."

She smiles back at me. "I think they might just be," she says, hope apparent in her voice.

"Yeah," I say. "I'm just glad I got you back."

"Believe me, nobody understands that more than I do," she says, smiling.

"So everything with Michonne… She went and found you guys then?" she asks.

"Yeah. She became a part of our group. She left Woodbury and came to us. It took everyone a little while to get used to her; she was a little cut off, you know? But everybody came around. So did she." I smile. "Did you know Andrea well?" I ask.

She nods her head slowly, looking sad. "Yeah… I did."

"Those people looked up to the two of us," she says. "When she went missing, the Governor told me that she ran. She told me that she was going to. But I… I didn't go with her. Told her that the people there needed salvation. Somebody to help them… to save them. She understood, and I said goodbye. That was the end of that."

"Did Michonne tell you?" I ask, referring to Andrea's death.

She nods again. "Yeah… she did. I just… wish that I would have gone with her. Protected her."

"I don't think you could have unless you had some kind of mind controlling power over that dumbass Governor," I say, smirking a little bit.

"Language, Emma!" she gasps, and I just laugh.

"Hey, I'm '_old'_ now, remember? I can say whatever I want to," I say, smiling.

"Speaking of you being old, are you and that Carl kid together?" I just look at her, feeling my cheeks heat up at my sister asking me a question about my love life, especially after the incident in the kitchen earlier. "You know…" she says, wiggling her eyebrows a little. "Boyfriend and girlfriend? Rock around the clock, two straws in the milkshake?" She smiles, chuckling a little.

"I.. I don't know. We haven't really discussed the titles," I say, not really sure what else to tell her, feeling myself smile at her ridiculousness.

"Well, do you love him?" she asks. I sit up a little straighter, feeling my smile soften.

"Maybe... I don't really know," I say, completely honest.

She smiles. "Ahh, young love," she says. I giggle. "Well, I'm gonna have to keep an eye on him, you know? I'll talk to him, let you know if I approve," she says, getting up from my bed.

My smile fades quickly, and I grab her arm. "Don't you dare," I say, as seriously as possible. She just smiles at me. "I'm not gonna do anything crazy, just talk to the kid," she says, wrangling herself away from my grasp. I criss-cross my legs and watch her crack up laughing as she exits my room.

I sit there for a pretty long time before she walks back in, smiling. She plops herself on my bed, and just looks at me. "God, don't look so worried!" she says, punching my arm lightly.

"Well, excuse me for being a little nervous when my older sister goes to 'talk' with the guy that I'm basically dating," I say, making air quotes with my fingers when I say the word "talk." I look at her and she just smiles. "It's like having mom or dad do the exact same thing."

"Well," she says, laying her head down on the blankets, "then you'll be thrilled to know that I approve of him," she says. I perk up, feeling happy and a little confused as to what he could have said to her to make her approve. She's a very picky person, especially when it comes to the people in my life. Of course, before now, it was just her picking and choosing which of my friends that I should and should not talk to, but it still shows how protective she is of me.

"What did the two of you talk about?" I ask.

"About you, silly!" she says, chuckling.

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Well," she starts, "I asked him how he knew Michonne, even though I already know. Just thought I'd make some chit-chat before getting to the more serious stuff. He looked kind of uncomfortable, but I really couldn't care less." She laughs a little before continuing. "I asked him about his home life a little, how long he's known you, things like that. Then I asked what was going on between the two of you and what his intentions were, and I liked his answers. Then I told him that if he did anything to hurt you that I would personally gouge out his eyeballs and hang him from a lamppost before catching him on fire, and he seemed to totally understand. That was about it."

I look at her a moment, not even a little bit surprised by her threatening him. Like I said, she was a really protective older sister. "...What were his answers?" I ask cautiously.

"Professional-client confidentiality," she says. "If you wanna know, you're gonna have to ask him." I smile a little bit, looking at her lying in front of me. Not only is she here, but approving of the people in my life. I reach over and lift her up in a hug, and her arms go around my back as I squeeze her tight. "I can't believe you're actually here," I whisper, smiling wide.

"Neither can I," she whispers back.

***

After talking with Delilah for a little longer, she told me that I should go get some sleep. I told her that I could just sleep with her tonight, but she insisted, leaving my room to go find somewhere else to sleep.

I smile to myself. She really is here. She's back. She's _alive._

I hear a knock on the wall and open my eyes to see Carl standing in my doorway. "Hey, come in," I say, not really able to contain my smile.

He slowly makes his way into my room, looking around the best he can in the dark. I sit and watch him, kicking my feet idly underneath the bed. He manages to find his way to me, leaning down and pressing his hands to my back, putting his forehead on mine as much as he can. I put my hands on his arms, taking in the silence and feeling of his hands on me.

His hands push on me, so I stand up slowly and he wraps his arms tighter around me. I wrap my arms around his neck and lean my head on his shoulder. "So, that's Delilah," he says, swaying the two of us back and forth.

"Yeah," I say, smiling. He leans back from me a little to look at me, removing one hand from my waist to tuck a piece of hair behind my ear. He leans in a little, about to kiss me, before I stop him with my hand on his chest. "What did you and Delilah talk about?" I ask.

He smiles a little, placing both of his arms around my waist again. "Stuff," he says, really nonchalantly.

"'Stuff' isn't gonna cut it, Mister," I say, poking his chest.

He chuckles a little, deep from the back of his throat, and I feel myself getting the urge to just stop the conversation and kiss him hard. "She asked me some stuff about before I knew you, my mom, Rick, Michonne, things like that," he says. "_Then_, she just asked me about you and I. You know.. If we were an 'item', things like that."

"Carl," I start, "Are we boyfriend and girlfriend?" I ask, surprising myself a little by how forward I am with the question. He doesn't look at all fazed.

"Do you want to be boyfriend and girlfriend?" he asks. I smile, bring myself to my tiptoes and kissing him lightly. "Yeah, I do," I whisper. His grip tightens around me, leaving me standing on my toes with no other choice.

"Good," he whispers. "Because otherwise, I'd feel kind of stupid because of what I told your sister," he says. I smile curiously at him, our faces unbelievably close. "And what exactly was that?" I ask, giggling a little.

"You'll have to ask Delilah," he says. I roll my eyes before I feel his lips on mine, blurring the thoughts of the constant circle I'll be running in to find out what he said. I shut my eyes tight, burying one of my hands in his long, brown hair, pushing him closer to me, if that's even possible. I deepen the kiss, tightening my grip on his hair. His hands grip tightly around the fabric of my dress, balling it in his fist. He pulls away unexpectedly, leaving me with the absence of his lips on mine before unwrapping himself from me, walking over to the pile of records lying on the ground. He crouches down in front of them, sifting through. "Anything good in here?" he asks.

I just stare at him, my mouth slightly open, completely astounded by his ability to be so caught up in something like_that_ and just walk away as if nothing happened. He turns around and looks at me, noticing my expression. "What?" he asks.

"You're crazy," I say, laughing. He smiles at me. "Yeah, but you'd have no interest in me if I wasn't," he says before turning back around. I feel my smile get even bigger. I walk over and crouch down next to him. "Yeah, there's a few really good records I picked out-"

"Go over there," he says, pointing in the direction of the wall at the opposite side of the room. "Why?" I ask like he's crazy.

"I'm gonna pick something out," he says, smiling. "I don't want your influence." I just look at him for a moment. "Come on, I'm trying to be romantic. I'm your boyfriend now, I need to reach a higher standard."

I stand and walk to the other side of the room, a large grin implanted on my face. "You've basically been my boyfriend for, like, nine months," I say once I reach the wall, leaning my back up against it. He shuffles through the records.

I hear him chuckle a little. "Yeah, but not officially," he says. "Plus, we hadn't actually kissed until not too long ago."

I smile at the thought of the last nine months. Things were perfect. Nobody was in danger or dying or sick. I was with the best people in the world. I guess at this point, if I never see them again, I'm just glad I knew them while I did.

I see him pick up something and take out a record, but I can't see which one because of how dark it is. He spins it in his hands and puts it in the player, setting it down gently and getting it ready to play. He stands up and faces me as I hear Bobby Darin's smooth, mellow voice waft through the air. I smile.

/bobbydarinmusic/music/song/easy-living-30850609-...

"Nice choice, nice choice," I say, nodding my head, smiling. He walks over and puts his hands on my waist, and I wrap mine around his neck.

_"Livin' for you, is easy livin', it's easy to live, when you're in love…" _plays from the record. The two of us sway to the music. "You approve, then?" he asks.

"Definitely," I say, burying my head in his shoulder, bringing down one of my hands from his neck and placing it on his chest, removing more space between us. I close my eyes, not even noticing that I was humming along to the song. This was one that my mom loved. She loved Bobby Darin, but this song was the song her and my dad danced to at their wedding. She would always sing it for us and say that it was "short, sweet, and to the point," which was exactly what it was.

The two of us danced like that for a long time, and stayed wrapped in each other's arms the whole night. Everything felt okay again. Everything felt right.

For those few hours, everything felt _perfect_.


	25. Immune

zombie_apocalypse_ready_16/set?id=112732558

I wake up on my bed, Carl's arms wrapped around my waist. I feel his steady breath on my shoulder, and feel somebody touch my arm. I shoot my eyes open, flinching before I see Michonne. "Relax, girl. It's just me," she says, smiling. I take Carl's arm off of me, careful not to wake him up. "I was told to wake the two of you up, but you seemed so cozy, I could barely bring myself to," she says. I smile and punch her arm a little, standing and rubbing my eyes.

"Oh, hush," I say through a yawn.

She chuckles. "Wake up sleeping beauty and come down and eat." She smiles and I watch her leave, turning my attention towards my pile of dresses on the ground.

I see a knife lying on the pile, thinking maybe Delilah put it there in the night. Very protective, as I said before. I pick one of my dresses out and am about to change when Carl's eyes flutter open.

"Morning," I say, happy. He stretches, yawning. "Morning," he says.

"Michonne just woke me up. Time for you to get your butt moving out of this room so that I can change," I say. He frowns at me.

"This bed is extremely comfortable."

"I don't see what that has to do with anything," I say, putting a knee on the bed.

"It means, I _really_ don't wanna get up," he says, pouting.

"Well, I _really_ need to change,"I say, mocking him.

"Go ahead, nobody is stopping you," he says, smirking. I punch him in the arm. "Hey! That actually hurt that time."

I giggle a little. "Good! Now you can either turn around and bury your head into that pillow or get out so that I can change," I say, wishing I hadn't given him the other option, because he turns around and does just as I say. "You're impossible."

"I'm waiting!" he yells through the pillow.

I laugh before slipping out of my other dress and quickly putting on the new one. "All right, you can turn around now," I say, zipping up my combat boots. He sits up and looks at me. "You're really pretty, you know?" he says. He's in a very good mood.

I smile, grabbing his arms and lifting him from my bed. "You're really pretty, too. Now, let's go eat some breakfast." He stands and wraps an arm around my waist, kissing my cheek. "Fine, but only because you called me pretty."

When we had made it downstairs and were about halfway through our bowl's of stale cereal, holding each other's hands, Michonne came in to eat with us. She's wearing a giant white shirt. Carl starts laughing and I hit him playfully on the arm. "Do you have something to say about my extremely comfortable and _attractive_ shirt?" she asks, rolling up the sleeves.

"No, no, it looks great," Carl says through laughs.

"Don't listen to him. You look _fabulous_," I say, smiling. She takes a seat across from me and pours herself a bowl. "I wish we had some soy milk," she says. I take a bite from my spoon.

"Seriously?" asks Carl, looking disgusted.

"Yes, seriously. Have you ever tried it?"

"My… My best friend in third grade. He was allergic to dairy. And every day he would bring this soy stuff to lunch." He chuckles. "And I tried it," he says.

"And?" she asks.

"And I threw up!" he laughs.

"Yeah, right!" I say, laughing.

"Alright, alright. I almost threw up. But I was like -" he continued to make a gagging sound and I just laughed at his silliness. It's nice to see him like this. Regardless of what's going on right now, we are genuinely happy people. It's amazing when that side of us comes out.

"It was_so_ gross!" Me and Michonne just keep laughing. "I mean, I would literally rather have powder milk than to have to drink that stuff again! I mean, I would rather have Judith's formul-" he cuts himself off. Michonne and I both stare at our bowls. Carl mumbles something and gets up from the table, letting go of my hand in the process. Michonne and I look at each other.

"You have no idea how amazing it is to have you back," I say. She tries to smile at me.

"It's been hard… I know," she says, waiting for me to say something in return.

I breathe in deep. "I just… Daryl. And Beth… Maggie and Glenn, they could still be alive," I say. She looks at me, wondering where I was going with this. "Regardless of the fact that I have no idea if they are dead or not… there's still a chance, you know?" I pause. "He's lost that chance."

"I know what it feels like," she says. "To lose people that you care about."

"Your boyfriend?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "I had a three year old," she says quietly. I take in the impact of her words, when I see Delilah walk into the room, her tall figure hard to miss. "Hey, baby sister!" she says, kissing me on the top of my head. I look at Michonne, asking silently for some kind of conformation on the words she just said, but she simply gets up with her bowl, walking off.

Delilah sits down next to me and pours herself a bowl of what's left of the cereal. "You know, the last time I saw you, you had red hair. In fact, I can't remember a time when you didn't have red hair," she says, smiling. I touch a hand to my hair, which has gotten extremely long, all the way past my chest and to my stomach.

"It's pretty brown now, huh?" I say.

"Actually, kind of black. It's a _really _dark brown, you know?"

"Well, it's been a while since I've seen it's original color, so I wouldn't really know." She just smiles at me. "It looks pretty, either way, so I don't think it matters," she tells me.

"Did you put a knife in my room last night?" I ask. She just smiles and takes a bite of cereal from her spoon. "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. I think it's better if I did though. Let's make sure that you don't get shot in the middle of the night, shall we?" she says, and I chuckle.

"Hey… do you know a lot about Michonne?" I ask. She shakes her head.

"She was always kind of a mystery to me. Still is. She's tough, though, so she can be as mysterious as she wants."

"Well, I mean, do you know anything about her past?" I prod.

"I know that she used to walk around with her walker brother and boyfriend. Not much other than that." I nod, keeping my mouth shut. I take another bite of my cereal before standing. "I'm gonna go ask them what we're doing today," I say. She nods and I leave to the kitchen.

I see Michonne and follow her when she walks into the kitchen. Rick see's the two of us walk in.

"Thank you," he says. "I heard him laughing in there. I almost forgot what that sounded like." It's sad when the words leave his throat. "I know I can't be his father and his best friend. He needs you two." I expected the words, but Michonne seems a little thrown off.

"I know that's a lot to throw at you, Michonne, so if you need a break-"

"I'm done taking breaks," she simply says. Rick nods, and I look up at her. She's so nimble and strong and content. I wish that I was like her. I turn and lean on the counters. "So what's the plan?" says Michonne. "This place… is it home? Or just a stop along the way."

"Well, let's… Let's just stay here while we figure it out.

"Well, we'll need more supplies, so I'll go and get some," she says.

"I'll come too," says Rick.

"Same here," I pipe in. Michonne turns to Rick, ignoring my comment. "You were unconscious yesterday," she says. "Well, I'm awake today," he says.

"We need you strong. Get some rest. Just one more day," she says.

Rick doesn't argue, and Michonne and I walk out of the kitchen together. We find Carl laying on the bed in his room, and I lean against the frame as Michonne walks farther in. "Cool room," she says. He sits up on his bed. "We're gonna go out and get some supplies. Figured maybe you'd wanna come along," I say. He nods his head, standing from his bed.

"Is my dad going?" he asks. "Nope," says Michonne. "He's gonna stay and get some rest." He just nods.

"Well, come on then. Let's get going," says Michonne walking past me. I'm about to follow her when Carl grabs my arm. I turn around to face him. "I don't want you to go," he says. What's up with people not wanting me to go on runs? They're my favorite part of this goddamned zombie apocalypse, you'd think I'd be allowed to go more often.

"Why not?" I question.

"Well, if my dad is here, then I think that somebody should be… you know, here to watch him. He could go unconscious again and get killed. I don't know. I don't mean to sound crazy, I just-"

"It's fine. I'll stay." I say, feeling like he's realizing his dad is really the only family he has left. He lets go of my arm and nods, walking past me, and I follow behind him downstairs, where Michonne is asking Delilah if she wants to come along.

Delilah says yes and I almost intervene, but I force myself not to. I can't just smother her since she's here. I feel the need to, but if I'm not nervous about Carl or Michonne leaving, then I shouldn't about her. Well, I mean, I should, but not to the extent where I force her into staying with me twenty-four-seven. I just smile and nod, feeling nervous on the inside as all of them pack up and remove the couch from the front door, all of us filing outside to bid them off.

"How long do you think you'll be?" I ask.

"To fill a couple bags…" starts Michonne. "Shouldn't be too long," finishes Delilah. She snakes an arm around my waist.

"It's eight-fifteen now," says Rick.

"We'll be back by noon," says Michonne.

Rick turns to Carl. "You follow their lead. You understand?" Carl just nods. they're about to walk away, Delilah's hand slipping from my waist, when Rick stops Carl. "Hey, everything okay?" he asks.

"Yeah… Just hungry," he says, lying.

"Okay…" says Rick. "I'll see you in a couple o' hours," he says. Michonne and Delilah turn and walk off, Rick turning back inside as well. "Be safe," I tell Carl, who didn't budge. He walks a few feet and kisses me once, lightly. "I will," he says, looking at me before turning away and jogging over to catch up with the two of them.

I walk in the front door, shutting it behind me. I help Rick push the couch back against the door. He sits down on the edge of it. It's silent for a moment. "It'll get easier," I tell him. He looks at me. "Once he has more time to move on… It'll get easier." I pause, as he gets up about to walk out of the room. "Just…" He stops walking. "Don't give up on him," I say.

"I would've told you that. Not the other way around," he says.

I smile a little bit and he hobbles up the stairs slowly, leaving me to do whatever.

I go upstairs and into Carl's room, looking around. I shuffle through the video games, all for XBox. I had one, and I recognize a lot of these games. Some of them were my favorites. I was quite the gamer for a girl, if I do say so myself. I look around and find a bookcase with a lot of books in it, obvious of the title.

I pick one up and sit myself down on his bed, opening it and beginning to read. I reach into my jackets pocket and find my MP3 player sitting in it, the earbuds attached. I hate the earbuds, but I love my music, so I put them in anyway and turn on the MP3, figuring I'll just listen to a few songs so I don't kill the battery. I have it setup so that if I listen to four songs in a row, it will automatically turn off. Pretty handy.

watch?v=c1p2CIda...

I sort through my library and start playing Reflecting Light by Sam Phillips. The lighter side of my music, considering the rest of what isn't folk or acoustic is rock or punk, not including the few songs from the forties and fifties that I have on here. Almost five hundred songs, and yet back then, there was never anything to listen to. Now, I could listen to all five hundred songs, and never get sick of a single one of them.

I open the book to the first page, and start to read.

I wake up to the sounds of a man screaming. In pain. My eyes open and I slowly move myself up, tucking the earbuds that were lying on the bed back into my pocket.

I don't remember falling asleep, but I think that is the least of my worries right about now. I hear other people, too. Yelling, fighting, kind of. I stand off of the bed and push myself up against the wall, looking out slowly into the hallway. I don't see anybody except somebody asleep on the bed in the master bedroom, and somebody lying on the floor in front of it. I turn back inside of the room and shut my eyes tight, opening them again only to see that I'm still here, and that this is still happening.

There's a constant pounding going on downstairs and I try to ignore it. I look around the room for anything; a gun, knife, really sharp bookmark. I don't know. I'm afraid I'm being loud, and my heart is pounding loud and hard inside my chest. I'm frantic. I run a hand through my hair, which is greasy and disgusting at this point.

I hear the pounding get closer to my room and look into the hallway. I don't see anybody, but I know that there is a kitchen knife in my room. The one Delilah put there earlier. I hear the pounding get a little louder and slide my way into the hall and into my room, backing up against the wall once I get there. I look outside of the door a little, hearing footsteps and seeing a man walk inside of Carl's room. Thank god I left when I did.

I quietly walk my way over to the pile of dresses next to my bed, and look around for the knife. I crouch down onto the ground, putting my head to the floor. I can see it under the bed. I reach my hand under it and grab it carefully, gripping the handle. Once I stand again, the noise of the banging gets farther away, more annoying by the second, and I let go of a breath I didn't know that I was holding.

I look out into the hallway again, and see nobody.

I try and decide what to do. I run over to the opposite wall and try and open the windows, but have no luck. A fall from here would end up breaking my ankle again, anyway, which I don't think even fully recovered, so it wouldn't have worked out very well in my favor. I go back to the door, clutching the knife to my chest.

I remember that Rick is here. Or was here. Or is dead in here.

I slip out, taking one last look at the room that I've grown to love, including the giant stack of records and the pile of dresses I made.

I hear the men downstairs talking and yelling to each other about a shirt or something. I'm pretty sure they're looking for somebody, and I'm more sure that if they saw me right now, they'd kill me.

I slip into the hall and across into the bathroom, where I know for a fact the windows open. I shut the door behind me and turn around, where a man is standing there just staring at me. My heartbeat raises and my head races a thousand thoughts in less than a second. I put my hands on his shoulders and kick my knee up to hit him right between the legs. He lets out a gasp and quickly falls over, and I know that I'm going to have to kill him.

He tries to get up but I hit him with the butt of my knife and push him back down, wrapping my arm around his neck to choke him. He struggles against me, and I suppose that I've grown strong in all of the runs and training that I've done over the past year, because regardless of the fact that it's a struggle, I manage to keep him down. His fingers are reaching for scissors on the bathroom sink, and I lay myself down by force so that he's farther away from them. He writhes and I tighten my grasp on him.

My arm is basically like a wire, at this point. It's strong, sturdy, but it's thin enough where I could strangle him well. He stops moving, and I couldn't care less if he was passed out or dead. I slowly unwrap my arm from his neck and hear the door open and close from behind me, and I immediately flinch up, holding my knife in front of me when I see Rick. I sigh in relief and he just looks at me and the unconscious man on the floor and nods.

"Window opens," I lip. He nods and maneuvers past me and the man to the window. He opens it, careful not to make any noise. I open the bathroom door just a crack, just in case he's dead.

I breathe hard. I could have just killed somebody. It's not like a I haven't before, but I've grown a little more civil than I was when I was on my own or with my parents. I crouch down next to him and put two fingers to his neck, looking for a pulse. I don't feel one, so I stand back up as Rick is trying his way through the window and onto the roof.

I'm not immune to this world; it still scares me. Still, I'm willing to do whatever I have to in order to stay alive. That isn't going to go away.

My breathing slows and I follow Rick's lead out of the window. We're both crouched on the roof, and he looks back once into the bathroom, reaching in and grabbing the gun off of the counter. I put the knife in my boot, and watch as Rick puts on his jacket and heads to the edge. He grabs onto the drain and slowly moves himself until his legs just drop and he's dangling from the side. He drops himself and my heart drops, as well.

He looks back up at me from the ground. He waves his hand for me to follow, and I try my hardest to follow his lead. I hate falling. It seems like a stupid statement, but God, I couldn't even count the number of times that I've fallen from trees or the roof of my friends' houses. I always was a daredevil as a kid, but now jumping off of a roof is just surviving - not like this is that great of a fall anyway.

I hold myself up by my arms once my legs are off of the pipe and it creaks. I lower myself slowly, and feel Rick's hands on my legs. I slowly let go of the pipe, and he lowers me to the ground. I breathe in deep once my feet hit it, and don't even remotely miss the daredevil side of me that used to jump from that height instead of slowly lowering myself down.

Both of us back up against the house, Rick holding his brand new gun. He takes the lead and crouch-walks over down some steps and to the side of the building through a few bushes, and I follow closely behind, my hands feeling the wall to my left.

He stops once we hear that annoying banging noise again. I look up and see a ball flying through the air. It's a tennis ball. I roll my eyes and crouch down deep into the corner, trying to hide myself.

The banging stops but I hear footsteps. Rick looks up to see what's going on and quickly comes back down. Somebody who is fairly close to us whistles. I look out to the street and see Michonne, Carl and Delilah walking back to the house. My heartbeat picks up, and my head fuzzes. _Shit_.

I can tell that Rick saw them, too, and he puts a hand on the foundation of the house, about to lift himself and shoot, it looks like, or at least make a run for it.

Just as Rick turns himself up and around to make a run or shoot, we hear yelling going on from inside. Whoever was just out here makes his way back into the house, and the second that he's gone, I see Rick sprint out to the street. There are gunshots, and I take off running as well.

Looks like he turned into a walker, after all. Serves these men right.

"Go, go!" whisper/yells Rick, and all five of us take off jogging down the street.

Once we're pretty far away, Rick stops himself to catch his breath, and we all follow suit.

"What the hell happened in there?" asks Michonne.

"There were some guys. They just… came in, I don't know," I say.

"Started what sounded like… torturing somebody," says Rick, between breaths. "I hid and the two of us got out."

"Had to kill someone," I say, standing up straighter. Carl puts a hand on my back.

"You guys get anything good?" asks Rick, starting to walk again. We all follow leisurely.

"Some," says Delilah, smiling. Nobody says anything else, but I feel Carl put something in my hand. I open my fingers and see earrings. Little pink roses. I smile.

"Thought you'd like them," he says, giving me a nervous smile. "I wasn't sure if you had your ears pierced or not. I do have them pierced, and back at the prison I used to wear some of Beth's earrings that she couldn't wear anymore since her holes had closed up. I didn't have any in when I got sick, so I wasn't wearing any now.

"I _love _them," I say, kissing his cheek. He smiles and blushes a little bit, wrapping an arm around my shoulder as we all walk.

I not-so-carefully manage to get the earrings in, and smile a little at the familiar feeling. I know it isn't smart to not disinfect or anything, but the chances I'd find something that could aren't very likely right about now, so I just figure it doesn't matter.

We walk, the five of us, for a while along train tracks.

I reach into my leather jacket pocket and make sure that my MP3 is still there, which it is, so I zip the pocket back up to make sure it doesn't fall out.

We soon come up to an abandoned train. There's a sign on it, and all of us walk over to it.

The banner reads "Sanctuary For All Community For All Those Who Arrive Survive"

I furrow my eyebrows a little and feel Delilah's hand wrap tight around mine. "What do you think?" asks Michonne. I look at the map. It isn't too far from here.

There's a long pause, all of us thinking it over. We could be safe. We were safe at the prison, but then we had enemies. Maybe this place really is just _safe._

_But what about the others?_

"Let's go," says Rick. I cringe a little at his words, but accept the fact that we need to take care of ourselves first. They're all strong. Maybe they've found this place, too.

If they aren't, I'll go after them. There's no doubt about that.

I feel Delilah pull on me, and I make my way to her side, all five of us walking in a row. I guess it's decided then.

Maybe we've finally found our sanctuary.


	26. Big-Cat Candy Bar

A/N: A little bit of fluff for you guys, considering that the season is over and I'm sure pretty much all of us are screaming inside. And, well, outside, too. - Katie

"I bet you you can't get to that rock over there before I can," says Carl, pointing forward towards a giant rock with his index finger.

We've been walking for a little while. We're all in pretty good moods, even considering the circumstances. I guess that we're all pretty tired and are just hoping that this Terminus place can be home. It's kind of far away from where we are now, but a little faith never hurt anyone.

Technically.

"What do I get if I win?" I ask him, smirking.

He mulls it over for a moment. "I'll carry you."

"You think you're a faster runner than me or somethin'?" I ask him, swinging our intertwined hands. He looks skeptically at me.

"No," he starts, "but I do think that dress will slow you down a little." I smile.

"You just admitted to being slower than me," I say, and hear Michonne and Delilah chuckle from behind us.

He squeezes my hand. "I did not!" he states.

"Did too!" I laugh. "Ask them!" I say, pointing behind us with my thumb. Carl turns his head around, asking them silently. I hear Michonne chuckle. "Hey, now. Can't deny what's already been said."

I let go of his hand and cross my arms in front of me with a satisfactory smile on my face. It's nice when things feel light. There's nothing wrong going on right about now. Everything's just.. okay. Carl crosses his arms in front of him, mimicking me.

"I guess there's only one way to truly find out who's the faster one, then, huh?" I ask him, and take off running past Rick, who's been in front for a while. "Hey, that's cheating!" I hear Carl yell behind me, before his footsteps pick up speed. "Come on, mans-land!" I grab my dress to make it easier to run in it, though it barely helps. The big rock is only a few feet away when he jumps and does a somersault in order to beat me to it, landing hard in the rough grass beside the train-tracks. I lean a hand on the big rock to catch my breath, and he props himself up on his elbows from where he's laying on the ground.

"Hah!" he breathes out, catching his breath.

"No, 'hah!'" I say. "Jumping is against the rules!"

"What rules? We're in a freaking zombie apocalypse!" he laughs.

I chuckle a little. "Well, there is no way that I am going to carry you."

"Ah-ah-ah, a bet's a bet!"

"Nope. Not when you're a cheater-cheater-pumpkin-eater!" I giggle at my silliness, but he really just brings that side of me out sometimes.

He gets up from the ground and sits on the rock next to me. "Can we have a mediator here?" he asks to nobody in particular.

"Cheater-cheater-pumpkin-eater!" says Delilah.

"Better pay up, boy," says Michonne, and I laugh along with them. Carl hangs his head back. "What!" he says dramatically, and I chuckle.

I stand up straighter, and his eyes travel me before standing up as well. "Come on," he says, turning around. I put my hands on his shoulders. "I thought the bet was to carry me."

He laughs a little. "A piggy-back ride is a form of carrying."

"But I'm wearing a dress!" I complain, and he just laughs again. "You'll survive," he says, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek before turning around again.

I sigh. "Fine. But if you drop me, you're dead meat."

"I hear you loud and clear, Colonel."

I giggle before hopping on his back, his hands grasping the part of my legs where my thighs and knees meet. "God, how much do you weight? Like ten pounds?" I smile and tousle his hair, earning a chuckle from him. I wrap my arms around him, and he takes off running, trying to catch up with the other members of our little group who so graciously left us behind.

"Ah, and justice is served," says Delilah, running a hand through Carl's messy hair. "Maybe next time, little boy."

I smile and lean my head on his right shoulder, taking in his familiar scent. I lean forward and kiss his temple, earning a sigh and "aw" from the people to my left. Carl just smirks and I giggle at them.

We walked like that for a while, and all of the terrain around us barely changing. We came across another Terminus sign, so we've gotten a little closer. I think I'm actually pretty excited for it.

"Can I let go of you now?" asks Carl. The two of us lagged behind a little, enjoying each other's company, though getting glances from the others every once in a while. I think Michonne likes having Delilah around. God knows I do, but there's a part of her that is just accepting that her past happened now. She has this one good person here from it after all this time.

We all really found each other.

Only nine more to go.

"Hey, now. You said it yourself. A bet's a bet."

"But I'm just so damn tired. It's hard enough walking in the sun as it is. When you have to carry a whole 'nother person, it gets pretty exhausting."

I chuckle. "Fine. I guess I've put you through enough as it is." He slows to a halt and sets me down, and I brush my hands over my dress, fixing any wrinkles in the fabric.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asks, snaking an arm around my waist. I look quizzically at him.

"What's what supposed to mean?" I ask.

"That you've already put me through enough as it is." I hadn't really thought about it before I said it. I stand up on my tiptoes, only a centimeter between the two of us. "Oh, you know," I whisper, and just as he leans in to kiss me, I pull away, skipping down the tracks in front of us. The others are pretty far ahead at this point.

I turn around to look at him, and he just stands there, staring at me like I'm crazy. "Tease!" he yells to me before running in my direction. I try to run but he catches up with me too quick, wrapping his arms around me from behind, leaving us both laughing like crazy at my pathetic attempt to escape, and me almost falling over if it weren't for Carl holding me up.

"Hey, lovebirds!" yells Michonne's voice from ahead of us. "How about a real bet?"

Carl and I exchange a look before we both run over towards them. "What kind of bet?" I ask as we approach the rest of them.

"Me and Michonne against you and Carl," says Delilah. "Whoever falls off the train track railing first loses." I smile.

"Sounds pretty good to me," I say.

"What do we get if we win?" asks Carl.

"The last Big-Cat bar."

Wow. I guess we really only have one left. "You're on," says Carl. I smile and we both try to get ourselves on the side of the tracks. "Everybody on?" asks Delilah. 'Yep's' come from everybody, and Michonne yells out a "Go!" and we all start walking on the tracks, one foot slowly in front of the other. This goes on for a few minutes, all of us taunting each other with lame threats, every once in a while one of us trying to scare the others off.

I heard Rick saying something up ahead, but was too busy focusing on the task at hand. He turns around when we don't respond.

He looks at us for a moment. "What're you doing?" he asks.

"Winning a bet," says Michonne.

I watch my feet and try not to laugh as Rick does. Michonne leans over and tries to push Carl off of the railing, and ends up falling off herself. I raise my hands in victory, smiling, high-fiving Carl. The five of us gather in a small circle as Michonne takes out the last two candy bars.

She tries her hardest to hide the Big-Car Bar, but fails miserabley. Carl opens it up, making a comment about how it really is the last Big-Cat Bar.

He opens it and breaks off a big piece for me and himself, handing one to Michonne. She turns it down.

"Come on. We always share."

She smiles and takes the bar, and I find myself smiling as well. I break off a piece to give to Delilah, and she takes it graciously, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

Carl turns and smiles at me before turning back around and talking with Michonne.

I smile and hug my sisters side, feeling good.

Feeling okay.


	27. Disconnected

A/N ~~ Just a warning: There's a little more language in this chapter than the others. I try my best to refrain from using it, but I think that the season finale is definitely a curse-worthy episode. And, of course, a curse-worthy chapter. -Katie

We moved off of the train tracks to go find food, since we were all out of things to eat without cooking them. There's five people here and an entire scarcity of a world in front of us, and let me tell you, nothing sucks worse than finding prey to eat and letting it get away.

"How hungry are you?" asks Rick, the five of us sitting around a small smoke fire, opening and cooking cans of whatever is left. "On a scale of one to ten?"

"Fifteen," answers Carl. I smile a little.

"Twenty-eight."

"Sixty-four."

"Seventy-two."

We all chuckle. "Well, it's been a while. I'm gonna go check the snares," says Rick.

"Can I come with you?" asks Carl. Rick stands, putting his hands in the pockets of his old and worn out jacket.

"Well how else are you gonna learn?"

Carl stands and Delilah wraps an arm around my shoulder, and I lean into her. I just keep hoping for this place. Terminus. Maybe it'll be like another prison to us. Or another Woodbury.

They kick some dirt and leaves into the fire to put it out. "Hey, you guys, too."

I smile and stand, not yet removing myself from under my sister's protection. We all get up and leave, walking in a line to go find our snares. "We'll stay another day or two. Get some more rest."

"Finish healing up?" asks Michonne.

"I'm almost there," Rick replies.

Carl sighs. "We're close now. Right?" I watch my feet move in rhythm to the people at my left and right.

"To Terminus?" asks Rick.

"Yeah."

"We are."

"When we get there, are we gonna tell them?" he asks. I look skeptically at him. "Tell them what?" I ask.

"Everything that's happened to us? All of the stuff we've done? Are we gonna tell them the truth?" I feel a bit sympathetic that he even feels the need to ask this question. It's not something that any of us think about, I'm sure. I've killed six people. That isn't something that I hold up on a podium and say 'Hey! Look what I've done!' I'm not proud of things like that. It's just what we do. How we survive. That isn't other people's business.

"We're gonna tell them who we are."

"But, how can you say that? I mean… Who are we?"

I consider this for a second before my thoughts get interrupted by the sounds of a growling monster. Michonne steps forward with her katana out to kill it, and I'm thankful that we have her around more so than a few seconds ago. She's a survivor. Nobody asks about her past, because we don't need to. Even though I am still curious about her son.

Carl, Rick and Delilah all pull out their guns, but I don't bother.

Soon enough we come across our snares, a rabbit caught in one of them. I feel pity for the animal, but not as much as I do for myself.

"So, this is just a simple slip-knot," Rick says, showing us. "Tie one on both ends, and tie the one end to the brand. And see how the ground here is sort of like a funnel shape."

"It's a trail?" says Carl.

Rick nods. "That's right. That's where you wanna set the noose. You set the leaves and the branches all around it, so any animal running through it will have to run this way. Right into the trap."

I hear screams coming from farther in front of us. "Help me! Somebody, please!"

Carl takes off running towards the sound, ignoring his father's yells after him. I curse to myself and free myself from under Delilah's arm, chasing after him.

I run straight after Carl until we see an opened clearing. There's a man screaming "Please! Somebody help me!" I barely have time to take in the tragedy with my eyes, seeing as the walkers are enclosing a circle around him. He has no chance.

Carl holds up his gun and my hands hang at my sides, my expression none other than a sort of pity that can't be explained unless you saw the exact same thing through my eyes.

Rick covers his son's arms with his, blocking his path to shoot at the zombies. They close in on the man as we all hide in safety behind the trees. "We can't help him," whispers Rick.

We all watch in silence as the man's face gets torn out, the blood staining his face and my eyes. I shut them tight, feeling Delilah's hands on me, trying to pull me in her direction. "We have to go!" she whisper/shouts.

Some of the walkers see us running and follow after, and we make our way our way onto the train tracks. I hear the man screaming still, even though I know he's long gone.

We come across more walkers on the tracks, and I reach into my boot and grab my knife, holding it close to my chest, completely unaware of the people around me.

Rick, Michonne and Delilah do the job of taking out the walkers in front of us. We run away. Like always.

We do that for a while, like always.

***

"I thought there might be some houses up this way," says Michonne, all of us breathing hard from running. "Maybe a store. There's _gotta_ be some food around here somewhere."

I've learned to push away the deadly feeling of about-to-pass-out because of lack of food and water in my system. After living on my own for a while, and even while living with people who didn't know what the hell they were doing in a zombie apocalypse, it's become a mastered skill of mine. "Hey, look," I say, pointing out the car a little bit in front of us.

I hold my knife close as we all take a look inside, searching for anything that's worthwhile. Safe to say that there was no food, and we ate our rabbit, and we talked just barely, and that's just how things are.

It had gotten dark just a little while ago, and all of us were sitting around our mini-fire, stomach's just barely satisfied. "I'm gonna head to bed," says Carl, standing.

"You're gonna head to _car_," I correct him. He smiles and holds his hands out to help me up. I take them and walk with him over to the car. We stand at the door, not that far away from everyone else. I can hear Delilah and Michonne talking, so I know that they aren't doing that "Ah, young love in it's natural habitat" thing like they always do. And for that, I'm grateful.

"I'm not really that tired yet," I tell him, leaning my back up against the car door. He intertwines his fingers with mine, and my heart beat picks up speed.

"You sure?" he asks. I would say yes, but I'm really just not. Which stinks, because being a zombie apocalypse and all, it isn't that easy to be all "Ah, young love in it's natural habitat," which sucks, because I like being alone with him. More than anything at this point.

I nod a little. "Yeah. I think I'll just sit and talk with the grown-ups for a while," I say. He smiles a little.

"Well, now I feel like a little kid."

"Hey, you're _MAN'S LAND,_ remember?" I say, emphasizing the words and making him laugh.

"Don't remind me," he says, still smiling. I lean forward and kiss his cheek, removing my back from the car, trying to hide the smile plastered to my face. "Night," he says. I take away my hands from his and put my hands on his neck, leaning forward and kissing him. He responds right away, and nothing feels forced or uncomfortable. It just feels natural. I hear some "Awe's" coming from the 'grown-ups.' I pull away and smile, a little embarrassed, and he does the same. "Night," I say, kissing him lightly one more time. I pull back and he opens the door and climbs in, shutting it behind him. I wave once to him through the glass before walking over to the three obnoxiously smiling people.

I sit down next to Michonne and she wraps an arm around my shoulders. "I remember when-" she starts, but I cut her off.

"Ah-ah-ah! Nobody is sharing any kind of embarrassing stories about me or Carl, okay?" I say, as seriously as possible.

Everyone exchanges a look. "Okay, okay," she says, putting her hands in the air out of defense.

It's quiet for a little while before someone speaks up again.

"That was one small rabbit," says Rick.

They go on talking about how it's all that we ever talk about anymore. Being hungry. Searching for food.

"I forgot what this feels like," I say to nobody in particular.

"Me, too," says Michonne. "I hope we'll be able to forget again soon." I tune out the things they're saying about this Terminus place. I look over to the car and see a shattered Carl through the windshield. I hear a noise come from behind us and Rick stands, obviously hearing it as well. It's silent for a moment as what feels like a held breath, my heart stopping for a second and my brain fuzzing. _This second could be my last._

But, of course, it isn't. Rick sits back down and the conversation resumes. "We let people in," Rick says.

"Yeah, we did. And so did the Governor," Michonne says back. She has a point. It's either another prison or another Woodbury. Or better. Or worse.

"Yeah. I suppose there are some things that we just… don't get to know until we know. Maybe this place isn't even there anymore-"

"Oh, deary, me!" says a twang voice to the side of me. I look to my right and hear a gun click itself into place behind Rick's head. Michonne reaches for her katana in less than a second, but some guy kicks it away, standing right behind me. I freeze. I exchange a look with Delilah, whose fingers are shaking just the slightest bit from what I can see. She's a badass, yes, but in moments of certain death like what this one seems to be, everyone can lose their shit without thinking.

"You screwed up, asshole," says the man. More men appear with large guns behind me, and I let my hair fall over my eyes to conceal myself. To disappear. I know very well how much this technique doesn't actually work, but my brain is fuzzy and thoughts distorted. I'm on edge and nobody has even done anything very "deadly" yet.

"You hear me? You screwed up!" The man tells Rick. I swallow hard, a lump in my throat. The gun is pressed right up against Rick's temple.

"Today is the day of reckoning, sir!" the man says. "Restitution. Balancing of the whole damn universe."

A man stands behind Delilah, one behind me and Michonne and another on the opposite side of the man with the gun pointed to Rick. I have a knife in my boot, but Michonne doesn't have her katana and Delilah and Rick don't have their guns. The second I make a wrong move, I'll be dead. I stay still, my breath shallow and fast, heart racing. I hear a knocking to my left. On the car window. Some bastard knocking on the window of the car, waking up the boy that I have the ability to call my boyfriend. For now.

"Shit, and I was thinking of turning it in for the night on New Years Eve! Now, who's gonna gonna count down the ball dropper with me!"

He cackles. I wince.

"Ten mississippi!" He shouts into the void. "Nine mississippi! Eight mississippi!"

"No!" I see Daryl come out from the darkness behind the car, and I feel a gun press farther into the back of my skull. Daryl. He's alive. Standing right there in front of me. He looks at all of us individually, my heart beating faster than I can imagine it ever having before.

Daryl is alive. _Oh, my God, he's alive!_

"You're stopping me on eight Daryl!" yells the gunman. He's with these guys? What the hell is going on here?

"Just hold up," he tells them.

Some other guy speaks up. "This is the guy that killed Lou, so we got nothing to talk about!"

"The thing about these days is that we've got nothin' else but time," Gunman intervenes. "Say your peace, Daryl."

Daryl steps forward slowly, getting closer to us. I want to run up to him. Cry. Scream. Tell him that I thought that he was dead. That I thought I'd never get to see him again.

But if I move I'd be dead.

"These people. You're gonna let them go. These are good people," he defends.

"Now, I-I, I think that Lou would disagree with you on that. I'll of course have to speak for him, because your friends here strangled him in a bathroom." I shut my eyes tight. Ihatethisihatethisihatethis.

"That fine. I get it." Daryl drops his crossbow. "Take it from me, man. Come on."

I open my eyes and look around. The Gunman looks almost hurt. Delilah's eyes are hard, cold, dangerous, and focused on the man behind me. Michonne's eyes are huge, and I can't tell if she's scared, shocked that Daryl is alive, or a mixture of something else. Rick, as always, is an enigma to me. The other men look at their targets with hard eyes, my nerves suddenly fixated on the barrel on the back of my head.

Maybe my hair would stop the bullet.

Figures my sense of humor shows up now of all times that it could. "This man killed our friend. You say he's good people. You see, now that right there is a lie. It's a lie!"

Two men leave their surveillance on the group of us and move to Daryl, punching and kicking him and shoving him against the side of the car. "Teach him, fellas! Teach him all the way!" The slam the butts of their guns into his side and knee him in the back, my brain kicking and attacking myself to stand up and run over there and get shot in the process. I can hear him grunt in pain and want to shut my eyes and look away but I can't. What is it about horrifying things that make the eyes and mind stay locked on them? Why can't I just shut my eyes and disappear? Why can't I just force myself up and get shot?

Every time I hear movement I flinch. My breathing is heavy and I want to die. Why can't I just die.

The car door opens and the fat-bastard man pulls Carl out of it, wrapping an arm around his neck and putting a knife up to him. "No!" Rick and I both shout, and I realize that I moved. The man with the gun grips my shoulder from behind me. Michonne and Rick are moving, trying to find some way to evade the situation, but there's no way out.

Michonne scoots on the ground, one of the men pointing a gun steadily at her. "You'll get yours, just wait your turn."

The silence that was instilled with the crickets just a few moments ago has been replaced with not only the sounds of beatings and silent cries for help, but with the sound of sheer terror and my conscience screaming at me. My ears have never hurt so much in my life.

I hear Carl squirming, and my mind is getting the best of me. "You let him go!" I instinctively scream out, my teeth clenched together.

"Listen, it was me! It was just me!" Rick lies, his voice threatening to yell.

"See, that's just right! That's not some damn lie. Now we can settle this, we're reasonable men. First, we're gonna beat Daryl to death. Then we'll have the girls. Then the boy. And then I'm gonna shoot you and then we'll be square!" The man laughs hysterically, and I really question my own sanity.

I hear indistinct cries coming from all directions it seems, and it's like they're in my head. _I'm losing my fucking mind._

The fat-bastard man takes Carl and pushes him on the ground, holding back his wrists as he struggles against him. He says something I can't quite make out, and I'm glad that I can't hear him, or else I'd run over and stab him in the neck, getting myself killed. You know, just assuming he wasn't telling him to have pleasant dreams and wishful thinkings.

I hear Carl cry and my shut my eyes, trying to drown out the world around me and doing an okay job of it. My hair falls across my face and I feel my cheeks dampen only slightly, continually whispering " .Lethimgo." I grind my teeth.

I hear a gunshot loud to my right, right next to Rick's head. My head spins and ears ring, given as it's so close. I blink a couple of times until my vision straightens out, watching as the Gunman coughs and Rick stands, punching him in the face. The Gunman punches him back, knocking him onto the ground. He kicks him while he's down. Like a _real_ fucking man would, right?

Rick struggles to get off the ground and I hear another gunshot come right next to me. My head spins and I lose myself for a minute, rolling back fast as a gun sounds off right next to my ear and it stings. I stand as fast as possible, the world spinning a little bit faster than it was a few minutes ago. The man that was standing behind me punches hard in the face and it's almost like my entire head spins around before I fall hard, hitting my head on the ground again in the process. I feel a foot just barely come in contact with my side, my entire body basically numb. It hits me again and again until I start to taste blood.

I hear another gunshot and then another, and the hits stop coming and I just lay there, coughing up blood. I push myself onto my elbows and open my eyes just barely, trying my hardest to straighten my vision. Whoever was kicking me is lying dead on the ground, and I feel Delilah's arms try to pick me up. I do my best to stand, feeling like a deer in headlights.

"I'll kill him! I-I'll kill him!" says fat-bastard, holding a knife up to Carl's neck. Michonne stands with her gun pointed towards him. "Let the boy go!" she says, her eyes wide. I feel Delilah's arms leave me and watch her go over to Daryl, punching guys out or something.

"He's mine," says Rick, calmer than I can ever remember him being. Carl scrambles to his feet and I see Michonne hold his head. It's almost like I'm disconnected from my body and in another world or something. I cough again and again, my own blood forming a pool at my feet. I feel muscular arms wrap around me and let myself fall into them, barely watching as Rick jabs a knife into and out of and over again in the bastard man's throat.

I feel the arms hold me tighter, and turn around so my head is in the person's chest, recognizing the person as Daryl. I fall a little more, ignoring the hair stuck on my blood-covered face. I hear the sounds of flesh being opened, but push it away. I seem to push everything else away in the process. "You're fucking alive," I manage to whisper to him.

"You stay with me, now, Emma," he whispers back, trying to shake me to stay awake, but I'm already too far gone.


	28. Trigger

A/N~~ Delilah's nickname by Emma is Lih, just pronounced "Lie." Like, De-LIE-lah. Lol, just thought you should know. (: And this is a superr long chapter. Nineteen pages, to be exact, but I already warned you guys about a long chapter. PLEASE comment and tell me what you think! I love reading your guy's thoughts and opinions on the story and on the show. Stay awesome!

P.S. I will be writing some stuff while the show is on break. Seven months is a LONG TIME. So I'll do some stuff from the eight month period at the prison. Fluffy stuff, almost death situations, whatever you guy's want. Feel free to comment ideas or anything. (I'll write whatever you guys want, just keep in mind that Carl and Emma haven't kissed in that time quite yet!) Enjoy! (: -Katie

~~~~

I open my eyes, finding myself with all limbs intact, in the front seat of the car.

I move and my stomach hurts like hell, but I ignore it. My eyes shift to the back seat, where Carl's head is laying in Michonne's lap. She sees my movement, apparently awake, and sits up straighter.

She looks concerned. "You okay?" she whispers, not wanting to wake up Carl. I'm in pain, but I'm sure I'm fine.

"Yeah," I whisper back. I point to Carl.

"He'll be alright. He's strong."

"Like father, like son," I say, earning a smile from her. I turn back around and look out the windows of the car. It's still dark outside. Early morning. I reach for the handle but hear a "Hey," being whispered behind me. I look back at Michonne, who is looking for some kind of clarification as to what the hell I think I'm doing.

"I'll be back. Just wanna see Delilah," I tell her. She nods wearily and I turn back, opening the car door. I step out slowly, letting my body adjust to the movement. It hurts.

I walk around the front of the car, seeing Daryl leaned up against a tree off of the road. He notices me and stands up straighter, and I can feel tears prick at my eyes. I remember seeing him last night, although not under the best of circumstances. My feet move on their own accord straight to him, and I wrap my arms around him, my brain not even believing that this could even be him. He is literally standing right infront of me, his arms wrapped around me.

He pulls me in tighter and I can feel his chin rested on the top of my head. "God, I thought you were dead," I say, my eyes shut tight but tears still managing to leave them.

"I didn't like the separation either, kid," he says, and I pull away just a little. His eye is badly bruised and he has cuts all over him.

"Are you okay?" I ask. He shrugs it off.

"I should be asking you that. You got beat pretty hard. Just.. passed out." I guess I did pass out.

"I'm fine," I tell him. I feel myself smile. "God, I cannot believe that you're here!" I say, hugging him again.

"At this point, neither can I."

I pull away from him again, wiping the tears off of my face. He grips my shoulders, leaning down a little to look me in the eyes. "Hey," he says. "I'm here to stay, okay? Nothing else is going to happen." He uses his thumbs to wipe off some of the tears on my cheeks and I smile. "Promise?" I ask. He laughs a little.

"Promise." He's here. He really is here.

"Baby sister!"

I look around behind Daryl and see Delilah running out of the forest. When she reaches me she wraps her arms around me, hugging me so tight it hurts. "Oh, my God. I was so worried. Well, I mean, I knew that you were fine, but I was still worried."

She pulls away and pushes some hair out of my face. "How do you feel? Too badly injured? Do we need to hang out here until you get better?" she asks, though I'm pretty sure she has absolutely no dictation over whether or not that happens.

"Really, I'm fine. We're not sticking around here. It's okay, I'm okay." She still looks concerned, and puts her hands on her hips.

"Emma Scar Peterson, you better not be lying to me because that's just the selfless person that you are." She sees straight through me, I swear.

"I'm not lying. Really," I tell her. She looks me up and down for a minute and she's about to say something else when I interrupt. "I think I'm gonna go and sleep for a little longer." It's still dark, but I can tell it's gonna get light in not too long.

"Okay," she says slowly.

"I'm gonna go see if I can catch anything if anybody needs me," says Daryl, picking his crossbow off the ground and putting it around him. "I'll come with you," says Delilah. He looks at her for a moment, but nods anyway.

"Be careful!" I yell after them, and Delilah blows me a kiss goodbye. I walk back to the car, opening the door and climbing in as quietly as possible."Michonne?" I ask. The door shuts silently to my right and I keep facing forward, not bothering to look at Michonne while I talk to her as it hurts to be at a turned direction.

"Hm?" I hear her say back.

"You said you had a three year old," I say.

"His name was Andre," she says after a moment. "I had a boyfriend named Mike. That was our kid. Andre Anthony." She says his name in the type of slow pride and awe that only a parent would.

"Were you married?" I ask.

"No."

"Who else knows?"

"Only Carl. And my brother and boyfriend. Now you," she says. I'd ask her how he… What happened to him, but I don't want to get into it. It would be too depressing, and I'd prefer not to hear about depressing things at pressing times after near-death experiences.

"What happened to Carol?" I ask.

"You remember Karen?"

"Yeah." I spent eight months with her, of course I remember.

She pauses. "Carol is the person that… burned them." It's silent. She.. the most caring and loving person who would do anything to protect people… burned people to death? It doesn't add up.

"Rick told her that… well, she needed to go in his eyes. So she left," she says. She sighs. "I think that she was just trying to protect everyone in a way. Make sure this virus didn't affect anybody else." I consider this for a minute. It makes sense. "I'm not justifying her actions. I'm just saying that she thought that she was doing the right thing. She wanted to keep everybody safe. It didn't work, but she was trying."

She had totally disappeared and I wasn't even remotely informed about it. I was too busy coughing up blood in a place with a bunch of other people coughing up blood that nobody bothered to tell me that the person I saw as a mother figure in my life was just… gone.

"I'm sorry," she says, sincere.

"Me, too." I close my eyes and try to sleep.

***

"Is she dead?" asks Rick.

"She's just gone. After that, that's when they found me. I mean, I knew they were bad, but… They had a code. It was simple, it was stupid, but it was something. It was enough. Said they were looking for some guy. I was hanging back. That's when I saw it was you four. I hadn't saw it. What they could do," says Daryl from outside of the car. My eyes are open and I'm just sitting there, pathetically in pain. I had to have had some internal bleeding or something. I haven't bothered to look at my side, and I'm kind of afraid to see what kind of a mark that asshole left behind.

He was with Beth. And now she's just... gone.

"It's not on you, Daryl. Hey. It's not on you. You're back with us here and now. That's everything You're my brother."

Daryl pauses. "I know what you did last night. Anybody would have done that."

"No, not that."

"Somethin' else happened."

"Daryl, you saw what I did to that guy. It ain't all that, but that's me. That's why I'm here now, that's why Carl's here. I need to keep him safe. That's all that matters."

I open the car door and get out, interrupting their conversation. It's pretty nice outside, ignoring the constant smell of rotting flesh in the air.

Delilah is sitting on the hood of the car, enjoying the sun it looks like. We lived in Northwest Ohio for a while, where the weather is so unbelievably ridiculous and bipolar that we were never quite sure if it was going to snow in the middle of summer, so it's nice to think that we moved down here when we did. We wouldn't have lasted a day in an apocalypse living up there anyway.

I grab one of Delilah's guns off the roof of the car, given that she has three with her at all times. I have my knife, which I'm pretty happy with, but all necessary precautions have to be taken. I put the safety on and shove it in my boot, Delilah just looking concerned at me the entire time. "I'm fine," I reassure her, but her expression doesn't budge. I see Rick and Daryl stand from where they were seated on the ground. "Hey, how ya feelin'?" asks Rick.

"Just grand," I say, a little too sarcastic. Hey, when you're in pain, you're in pain. There's nothing else you can do except be a little bitch about it, right?

"She's a tough sonofabitch," says Daryl, and I smile at his sort-of-compliment. Both Carl and Michonne emerge from opposite sides of the car. "We gon' get going, then?" asks Delilah. Rick nods.

"We should get to this place today, no doubt, so let's get a move on," he says, picking up guns out of the front seat and putting them in a duffle bag, everyone getting their assets together. I feel a hand grab mine, and turn to see Carl, pulling me farther aside and off of the road. My back hits a tree and his lips make contact with mine for a couple of second until he pulls away, wrapping his arms around me. "I was worried," he says.

"Well, that's the nicest way anybody has said that to me all day," I say, earning a small smile from him. He pulls me into a hug. "Are you alright?" I ask him, remembering him getting beaten last night, but memory driving nails into my skull. "Yeah," he says, but I can tell he's not. "I'm fine."

I pull away, and put a hand on his cheek, trying to scratch off some of the dried on blood with my thumb. His arms are still around me. "Don't look so concerned. At least try to hide it a little," he says, both of us laughing a little.

"Hey, I'm your girlfriend. I'm supposed to be concerned." He just smiles.

"Hey, lovebirds!" I hear Delilah call to us. We both look over. "Time to get going!"

Carl unwraps himself from me and I tuck my long, tangled hair behind my ears. "If you weren't okay, you would tell me, right?" I ask.

He nods a little. "Of course." He doesn't sound very sincere, but I decide not to bug him. He holds out a hand for me to take, and I do. The six of us walk side by side, on our way to a brand new home.

***

He pushes some leaves off of the sign with his foot. "We're gettin' close. We should be there before sundown," says Daryl.

"We'll head through the woods. We don't know who they are," Rick says.

We stray off and eventually find the fence, Rick dropping the bag of guns on the ground. Terminus doesn't look bad, per say. "We all spread out, watch for a wall. See what we see. Get ready. We all stay close."

Carl unwraps his arm from my waist and kisses my cheek before following after Michonne. "You wanna stick with me?" Rick asks him.

"It's alright," he says back. He follows after Michonne, and I'm really wondering if what he saw from his dad last night freaked him out. Delilah had told me he ripped out that gunman's throat with his teeth. Anybody would be scared by that, especially if you were seeing your very own dad do it. But.. he isn't crazy. Not like he was. Like Daryl said. Anybody would have done it.

Delilah walks alongside me, the two of us scouting out the area like everybody else.

"I feel like I've barely talked to you since you got here," I tell her. She chuckles and drapes an arm over my shoulder.

"Yeah, well, I've barely spoken to anybody if it makes you feel any better." It's quiet for a minute. "These people you've got here… I feel like they aren't good." I look up at her and stop walking. Her arm falls.

"What do you mean, 'they aren't good?'" I ask, feeling a little frantic.

"I mean, not that they don't have good intentions. They do, I can tell. But as far as I can see, they've caused you and themselves nothing but harm." She's whispering distressedly so that they others don't hear her. We're pretty far away already, but God knows she likes to be _safe._

"They're perfectly _fine_, Delilah!"

"Well, I know that you think that-"

"You're damn right, I think that! These people are my family. They took me in when I was a wreck, when nobody else_would!"_

_"Think_ about this Emma!" She pauses and I breathe really hard, feeling enraged that she would say something like this. "Since you got with this people, you've gotten crazy sick, almost killed dozens of times, and this prison place that you were at got torn down, right? These people have enemies. God, I just witnessed one of these attacks last night. Don't tell me that they keep you safe. Sure, they gave you a place to crash for a while, but we've found each other now!" She looks at me for some kind of answer, but I just stare at her like she's crazy, my arms crossed. "I mean, your whole goal was to find me, right? You found me. We're here, we're together. We could go. We could be safe."

I can barely even look at her. "What part of 'they're my family' don't you understand?" I say, trying not to yell at her.

"They're not safe."

"Safe or not." She just stares at me. "They are my family. I don't care if they have enemies and I don't care if I've gotten hurt or not. These people… They are here when nobody else was, when you weren't. They were there then, and they are here now. I'm not about to throw that all away just because you think I'm in danger. Wake up, Lih! We're in a damn zombie apocalypse, nobody is safe! But with them, I am. Regardless of what you think."

She doesn't say anything so I walk off in the other direction. "Emma!" she calls after me, distraught, but I don't respond. I keep walking until I come across all of them standing in a group, just about to climb over the fence. "You guys ready?" asks Rick. I hear Delilah's footsteps coming up behind me, and can feel her eyes boring into the back of my head, but she doesn't say anything.

Carl touches my shoulder and I jump. "You okay?" he asks. You must be able to see the steam coming out of my ears. I nod slightly. "Fine," I say, not very convincing. He looks at me and I just stare forward, watching as Rick and Daryl take the lead in climbing over the fence. Everybody climbs over, making tons of racket.

Once on the other side, I reach into my boot and grab my gun, turning the safety off. We make our way around, finding an opening to a giant warehouse of a building. Daryl walks in first, all of us following. "Sanctuary for all, community for all. Those you arrive survive. Terminus," says a lady's voice.

The room is huge like a department store. There are quite a few people working at separate tables in the farther end of the room, making maps it looks like, or at least something of that nature.

We all file in and everyone stares at us when Rick says "Hello."

"Well, I bet Albert is on perimeter watch," says a man standing in the back. He walks over to us, keeping a safe distance. "You here to rob us?"

"No. We wanted to see you before you saw us," says Rick.

"Makes sense," says the guy. "Usually we do this where the tracks meet. Welcome to Terminus. I'm Gareth. Looks like you folks have been on the road for a good bit."

"We have." Damn straight.

Rick introduces us, calling us out down the line. "I'm Rick. That's Carl, Emma, Daryl, Michonne, Lilah." The man waves once to us and it's quiet.

"You're nervous! I get it! We were all the same way. We came here for sanctuary. Is that what you came here for?" asks the man who now has a name.

Rick nods. "Yes."

"Good. You've found it. Alex!" he says, a man, who I would assume to be Alex, walks down to us, a smile on his face. "This isn't as pretty as the front. We've got nothing to hide, but the welcome wagon is a whole lot nicer. Alex will ask you a few questions, but first, we need to see everyone's weapons."

It's quiet for a long moment, all of us looking at Rick out of the corner of our eyes. Sure, it's a democracy, but he calls the shots. Maybe that isn't how it should be, but it's the way that it is. I think he's gained his place. He's gained his self-awareness and saneness back, so that's a good step in the right direction as it is.

Rick nods. "Alright," he says, taking his gun out of its holster and putting his weapons on the ground. I follow suit, as well as everyone else, and reach into my boots to take out my gun and then my knife. "I'm sure you understand," says Gareth.

"Oh, we do," says Rick. Alex searches us down the row, from Delilah to Michonne to Daryl and to me.

"Don't really have that much to search here," he says, giggling a little. I glare off in the other direction, not wanting to make a bad impression. I keep my mouth full of sarcastic comments to myself as he moves to Carl.

"Do you deserve it?" he asks, jokingly.

"Yes," says Carl. I shoot him a look but he doesn't budge.

"Just so you know, we aren't those kind of people, but we aren't stupid, either. And you shouldn't be stupid enough to try anything stupid, either. As long as everyone's clear on that, we shouldn't have any problems. Only solutions. Okay?"

"How can there be solutions if there aren't problems that need them?" I ask rhetorically, the words just kind of sliding out. And really sarcastically for that matter.

Gareth looks at me suspiciously for a second, but nobody responds to my comment.

Alex reaches at my feet and hands me back my knife and gun, and I take them just staring at him. We all can have pretty scary faces if we want to.

"Come on, follow me," says Alex after 'giving' everybody back their weapons.

We follow him through the Home-Depot and out a giant metal door, leading to an outdoor area with pregnant women and healthy men and tables set up in the sun with umbrellas over them and a giant grill with what looks like perfectly edible food on it. I walk alongside Carl, Delilah as far away as possible. If she wants to leave, she can leave. But I'm not gonna fight with her. Especially not over something like this.

Carl wraps an arm around my arm, putting his hands in his jacket pockets so our elbows are looped together. "How long has this place been here?" asks Daryl as we walk towards the grill.

"Since almost the start. When camps got overrun, people started finding this place. I think it was a kind of instinct, you know? You follow a path. Some people were heading to the coast, others out west, some up north. Everybody just ended up here."

We walk up to the grill and I spin my gun around on my free hand. An older looking lady with messy hair speaks up. "Alright. You came in the back door. Smart. You'll fit right in here."

"Hey, Mary. Will you fix these folks a plate, here?" asks Alex. She flips over meat on the grill, and I can't remember being so hungry with food right in front of me.

"Why do you do it?" asks Michonne. "Why do you let people in?"

"The more people become a part of us, the stronger we get," he says, grabbing a plate of food from Mary. "That's why we put up the signs. Invite people in. It's how we survive."

_It's how we survive._

I looks around a little more. There's just a few people outside. Three, maybe four besides this Mary girl and Alex. Everyone is at peace. Nobody is frantic. Nobody is freaking out. Nobody is _scared._

Alex hands Carl a plate of food and then me. Carl detaches his arm from mine to take the plate, and I have to tell you, it smells like heaven for somebody who hasn't eaten anything except chocolate pudding in the last three days.

Aex holds up another plate for someone to take. Rick walks up and smacks it down and reaches for something in Alex's pocket, before taking out his gun and pointing it at Alex's temple. Daryl holds up his crossbow, Michonne her katana and Carl, Delilah and I our guns.

"Where the hell did you get this watch?" Rick says to a terrified looking Alex. I aim my gun directly at Mary, seeing as everybody else's weapons are at Alex, who does not actually have a weapon on him, but his hands in the air. Mary holds her hand at her belt, fingers lightly gripping her gun. I look over to Rick. He's holding some pocket watch. I squint a little to see through how bright it is out here. His pocket watch is the one that Hershel gave to Glenn.

I click my trigger into its place directly at Mary's head.

Other people that were just sitting so peacefully stand with their weapons pointed straight at us. I glance over to Carl and he glances over to me, and the two of us share a worried look that says 'We're in over our heads.'

There's tons of people here already from what we've seen so far. Who knows how many more there are that we haven't seen? I look up to the roof of the buildings and see snipers and just keep thinking over and over again, "We are so screwed."

"Where did you get this watch?" he repeats again. Michonne, Daryl and Carl face the small crowd of peaceless people to our left, and Delilah and I keep our guns at Mary, who's staring directly at me.

"You want answers? You want anything else? You get them when you _put down the gun_!" pleads Alex, totally overwrought.

"I see you got a sniper-rifle. How good is his aim?" asks Rick. "Where'd you get the watch?" No answer. "_Where'd you get the watch!_" he screams.

I look back over at Carl, whose expression has turned from nervous panic to a complete wash-over of calm. Nobody thought. Nobody thinks. We could have asked instead of pulling out our guns. I hate being that annoying voice of reason that wants to solve every misfortune and problem with cupcakes and rainbows, but is this completely necessary? The second we thought something happened to Glenn, _that's_ when we pull out the guns! Nobody here fucking thinks!

"Don't do anything!" screams Alex to his snipers. "I have this! You just put it down! _Put it down!" _I peek away from Mary to see the sniper's putting their guns down at Alex's request. My heart thumps against my chest and head.

"You people need to listen to me," Alex says to Rick. "There's a lot of us!"

"Where. Did you get. The watch."

"I got it off of a dead one. I didn't think he'd need it!" My eyes rip themselves away from Mary and peirce, wide at Alex._A dead one._

My grip on my gun falters.

"What about the ride gear? And the poncho?" asks Rick. Those were Glenn and Maggie's things. The blood rushes to my face, and I have the overwhelming need to shoot somebody. I never thought that I would feel that way about anybody except for the Governor.

I take my gun off of Mary and point it at Alex, my entire body struck with some weird mix of grief and anxiety that makes my whole body shake. I take a few steps closer to Alex, my mind drowning out the sounds of anybody else. Rick turns to face Gareth, who must be talking or something. I'm about a foot away from Rick and I stay there, both hands on my gun, my legs shaking. "_You_ talk to_ me_," says Rick to Gareth.

"What else is there left to say? You don't trust us anymore." You've got that fucking right.

Gareth holds up a hand as Alex implores him. "What do you want?" he asks Rick.

"Where are our people?" I say, my voice shaking.

"You didn't answer the question," he says, the calmness of his voice contrasting with the terror and anger in mine.

Rick looks at me and nods, just ever so slightly, and I pull the trigger on my gun. The bullet goes straight through Alex's head. Rick throws him on the ground and I stand there, breathing hard as noises erupt all around me, but I can't even move. It's like I'm getting no oxygen or something. I hear yells and gunshots, but don't move. My breath becomes ragged and I feel Carl wrap a hand around my arm, forcing my legs to work. We run and the sniper rifles shoot, missing us. We run back in a different direction, the bullets just making holes in the ground. I grip my gun hard.

We sprint towards the exit, my dress making me run slower than I would like when I'm _about to die._

The giant exit shuts before we get there, and we run in different directions around the Depot trying to find somewhere else to go. We find a door with a big white "A" on it, and Rick opens it, Michonne pushing Carl and I through after Daryl. I just chase wherever they go, nobody getting shot regardless of the tons of snipers on the roof. They block another passage with shots. They're trying to take us somewhere._ They're missing on purpose._

We run past a giant encasing of rotting flesh and bones. All what remains of people, smelling like what I imagine hell would smell like.

I hear screams of "Help! Help us!" from train cars stacked on top of each other and we run straight past them.

"What the hell is this!" I yell out.

My mind races. Are these people cannibals or something!?

We run into another entrance with the letter "A", opening and entering a room filled with candles. They're all over the floor and on little stands, tons of writing on the floor of people's names with ribbons and flowers and dolls and mementos next to them. It sure smells better in here than out there.

The words "NEVER AGAIN. NEVER TRUST. WE FIRST, ALWAYS." are written across the walls in big, black letters.

"What the hell is this place?" asks Daryl.

I look around me and step over candles. David Connet. Jessie Ogden. Sheila Bennett. Kristen Miller. All names of people that have done what? Died? Been sacrificed? The ones who managed to become a part of this little screwed up town of theirs and lived?

"These people," stars Michonne. "I don't think they're trying to kill us."

"No," says Rick. "They're reigning their feat." If they were trying to freak us out, I'd sure as hell say that they've done their job.

This is sick. "Over here," says Rick, pointing to another exit door. We all follow, but somebody shuts it before we get there. "GO!" screams Rick, all of us piling through another door with another "A".

We all run out, coming onto the train tracks where the snipers direct us. People with weapons emerge from behind bushes, all of them pointing directly at the six of us, who have all stopped any kind of movement except breathing, and even that is becoming extremely difficult.

The six of us stand in a circle, and I just look around at all of the people with their guns pointed at us. We have no chance. This is the last second.

"Drop your weapons! Now!" calls one of the snipers. I look at Carl and he stares at his dad. "Now!" he calls again. We all put our guns on the ground and I take my knife out of my boot, remembering that they saw it earlier. I put in on the ground, letting my fingers linger less than a second on it.

My last chance of survival is just lying on the ground in front of me, mocking me and all of the shit I've had to put up with, and now this. I didn't ask for this. I didn't ask for an apocalypse. I didn't ask for my parents to die. I didn't ask to find another home or to get attached to to feel safe and have it all ripped away from me! I didn't want this! I just wanted to live! And when that was taken away from me, I just wanted to die. Why could I have died while I had the chance!

…I'm not ready.

Not now. Not then. But here it is, staring me straight in the face, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it._ I didn't ask for this. I don't want this._

"Ring Leader! go to your left! To the train car, go!" Rick doesn't budge. "You do what we say, the kids go with you. You do anything else, they die and you end up in there anyway." My eyes bore into Carl, and he just stares at Rick, who's eyes are fixated on Gareth.

Rick nods a little to Carl and walks off towards the train car. I can feel my heart in my fingertips.

"Now the archer!"

I look at Daryl, who looks back at me. He lips the word "promise" to me and I just nod, knowing very well how terrified I look. He looks dead-eyed and Gareth and walks off, following Rick to the outside of the train car. A big, white "A" painted on the side.

"Now, Lara Croft!" Gareth yells, talking about Delilah. She looks at me for a second before walking off, following Daryl.

"Samurai!" Michonne goes, leaving Carl and I just standing without purpose. "Line up in front of the train car! Ring Leader, Archer, Lara Croft and Samurai! In that order!" They all follow his instructions and line up outside the door. My hands ball into fists at my sides.

Carl turns his head and looks at me. He looks more terrified than I've ever seen him be. More than the many times both of us have had death scares. He lips the words "I love you" before turning back around, not giving me a chance to say anything in return.

"_My kids_!" yells Rick.

"Go."

Carl and I walk, him a measurable distance in front of me. "Ring leader! Open the door and go in!"

"I'll go in with them!" he calls back.

"Don't make us kill them now!" My palms are bleeding from my nails digging in them.

Rick takes his steps up the ones to the train car and opens the door, and I watch all of them file inside. When Carl and I make it to the steps he stops and turns around, and gives me a look of terror. I try to reduce the size of my eyes and nod to him. He turns back and walks up the stairs, entering first. I follow after and the door shuts behind me. I see the figures of other people standing at the other end of the car. That's when I see them. "Rick?"

Glenn. Maggie. Sasha. Bob. People I don't recognize.

I want to run over. Drape my arms around Maggie and cry. She's standing there, right in front of us. Maybe now, everything is just coming together, not falling apart like I think it is.

"You're here," says Rick.

"_You're here,_" I repeat, awe-stricken. I let my nails fall away from my palms, feeling the blood trickle slowly down my fingers.

"They're our friends," says Maggie, referring to the people I don't recognize. "They helped save us."

"Yeah," says Daryl. "Then they're friends of ours."

"For however long that'll be," says a tall, muscular man in the back.

"No," Rick states.

_*  
"It can be like this all the time."_

_"No. It's like this now. That's enough."_  
_*_

"They're gonna feel pretty stupid when they find out," says Rick, walking over to look through the crack in the train car door.

The muscular man speaks up. "When they find out what?" My hand grips onto Carl's, ignoring the blood and stinging. He holds mine tight.

_"They're screwing with the wrong people."_


End file.
